Updated October 2, 2026. Shopify updates Sidekick often, so what it can do may have changed since we wrote this.
What Sidekick can do for reordering
Sidekick is the assistant built into your Shopify admin. Shopify says you can ask it what to reorder, and it recommends products and quantities based on your sales history and what you have left. It can then create a purchase order pre-filled with products, quantities, and cost prices, which you can adjust by chatting.
Questions to ask
- "What should I reorder this week?"
- "Which products will run out in the next 30 days at the current sales rate?"
- "How many days of stock do I have left for [product]?"
- "Which products haven't sold in 90 days?"
Give it your real numbers
Sidekick works best when you tell it what it can't see. Shopify's own migration guide says supplier lead times, minimums, and case packs can only be stored in metafields, which purchase order calculations don't use. So include them in your question:
Which products should I reorder from [supplier]? Their lead time is 21 days, the minimum order is 48 units, and they ship in cases of 12. I want 30 days of stock after the delivery arrives, plus a small buffer.
Check the answer before you order
- Ask it to show its working: "How did you get that number?" You want daily sales, lead time, and what's on hand.
- Check for sold-out days. If a product was out of stock recently, its sales will look lower than its real demand.
- Check what's already coming. Make sure the quantity accounts for orders already on the way.
- Check the season. A recent average will understate Black Friday and the holidays.
- Compare with the math. Our reorder point guide shows how to work out one product by hand.
Send the order
Sidekick drafts the purchase order in your Shopify admin. Shopify's guide says you can't email a purchase order from the admin, so export the PDF and send it to your supplier yourself. Our guide on creating a purchase order in Shopify covers the rest.
When Sidekick is enough, and when it isn't
If you have a short product list and remember to ask, Sidekick may be all you need. It gets harder when you have many products and several suppliers with their own rules, and when you need someone checking every day rather than when you think to ask. Our Sidekick comparison covers where each fits.
Sources
Shopify Help Center, Migrating from Stocky to Shopify inventory management, and the Shopify blog, Managing inventory in Shopify just got easier, checked October 2, 2026.