Key Takeaways
- Prediko plans from your real Shopify sales, not memory or old spreadsheets.
- Buy now flags and order deadlines warn you before a best seller runs out.
- Cost reports show cash tied up in overstock and sales lost to stockouts.
- Saved views, demand plans and reorder switches let it grow with your store.
- Accurate settings and stock counts are what make the forecast reliable
Running out of stock costs you sales. Holding too much costs you cash. For most e-commerce businesses, the hard part is knowing which problem you are heading toward before it arrives.
We use Prediko every day while managing purchasing for a growing toy brand that sells on Shopify, both to shoppers and to wholesale buyers. Here is how the tool helps an online store plan its inventory, where it shines and what to keep in mind before you rely on it.
It works from your real sales data
Prediko plugs straight into your Shopify store and reads your sales history, stock levels and product details on its own. If you run more than one store, as our client does with separate retail and wholesale stores, it reads them together.
From that data it forecasts how much of each product you are likely to sell over the coming months. Your buying starts from what customers actually bought, instead of from memory or a spreadsheet that someone updates when they find the time.
It tells you what to buy and when
The most useful screen for an online store is the buy plan. Every product gets a clear status, such as buy now, at risk, no risk or overstock risk, along with the date you need to order by.
Because Prediko factors in each supplier's lead time and how many days of stock you want to hold, it can warn you months before you run out. That matters for brands buying from overseas, where an order placed late can mean weeks of empty listings. When you are ready to order, it creates a draft purchase order with suggested quantities already filled in.
It shows where your money is
With unit costs in place, Prediko turns stock into dollars. You can see how much cash sits in overstock, how much you are losing to items that are out of stock, and which products are your top, middle and slow sellers.
For an online store owner, these reports answer the questions that matter at month end. Where is our cash tied up, and where are we leaving sales on the table? We pull them into every monthly purchasing report for our client, so the owner can see the impact of each buying decision.
It grows with your business
A small store can start with the basics and add more as it grows. These are the features we came to rely on most:
Saved views. Build a view for each supplier or season, so every buying session starts with the right list.
Editable demand plans. When a wholesale buyer places a big order for a future month, add it to that month and Prediko plans around it.
Bill of materials. If you make your own products, Prediko tracks the parts that go into each one and tells you which raw materials to buy.
Reorder switch. Turn reordering off for retired or out of season products, so they stop cluttering your buy list.
Together, these let the tool keep up as your range, channels and order sizes grow.
What to keep in mind
After months of daily use, a few things stood out. None of them are deal breakers, and all of them come down to how you look after the tool.
The forecast is only as good as your settings. Real lead times, minimum orders and pack sizes make a big difference.
New orders take a little time to show up in the plan, so refresh it after each round of buying.
Raw materials are often tracked by weight while suppliers sell by the bag, so check units before converting.
Seasonal products sit idle for most of the year, so plan them from last season's selling window.
Accurate stock counts matter. If stock on hand is wrong, the buy plan will be wrong too.
When something looked like a system issue, Prediko's support team was quick to respond, and one problem we raised was confirmed and fixed.
Is Prediko right for your store?
If you sell on Shopify, buy from suppliers with long lead times and carry more products than you can track in your head, Prediko is worth a close look. It gives you one view of stock, sales and incoming orders, warns you before you run out and shows where your money is sitting.
The tool does the heavy lifting, but it still needs someone to set it up properly and read it with care. That is what we do for e-commerce brands. We set up Prediko, keep it accurate and run monthly buying from it. If you want a hand getting more out of it, get in touch and we will take a look.
