How To Optimize Shopify Purchase Order Flow With Cogsy

Cogsy empowers Shopify merchants to level up their operations by optimizing purchase orders and inventory management.

As a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, your inventory is your lifeline. If you don’t put enough on your purchase order, you won’t have the stock needed to make the sale. Customer experience deteriorates, the brand image suffers, and your sales drop significantly.

So, how you manage your inventory determines your brand’s trajectory. Will it trend up (you’ve got enough product on hand and are selling well) or nose-dive (you’re out of stock, need to reorder, and out of pocket waiting for new inventory to come in)?

The difference between those two scenarios is sometimes as simple as using the right tool.

As the missing purchase order flow for Shopify, Cogsy is that tool. Because creating the right purchase orders at the right time will power the order fulfillment side of your business and lead you toward operational excellence.

And with access to the right data and the right tools, you can take smarter actions more proactively and maximize the success of your online store.

Let’s walk through how Shopify purchase order works with Cogsy.

Why your purchase order flow matters

A purchase order (PO) is a document indicating a brand’s commitment to buy a certain amount of goods from a manufacturer or supplier. It’s the backbone of what a retail brand has on hand to sell.

Getting POs right keeps your business aligned to meet customer demand.

Cogsy helps modern brands do just that by providing proactive sales prediction and inventory intelligence. This way, brands know what to expect and prepare accordingly by placing the right POs with correct SKUs, products, and variants.

Imagine creating the optimal purchase order at the click of a button. That’s what you get with Cogsy. Plus, we’ve prepared a new purchase order template you can customize and get the next order ready ASAP. The days of using spreadsheets for demand planning and managing inventory are long gone.

With Shopify inventory and sales updated in real-time, Cogsy automates the creation of recommended purchase orders long before stock runs out—for the right amount of products at the right time. This removes guesswork and self-doubt from the equation.

We’ve got you—we’ll take care of making your inventory purchasing as optimal as possible, so you can tend to the other areas of your business.

Providing access to full Shopify purchase order visibility

After creating a PO, you eventually need to receive it to update your inventory counts.

Some brands use expensive inventory management systems (IMS) or third-party logistic (3PL) solutions that support an end-to-end purchase order flow.

But for the most part, Shopify store owners don’t have visibility after placing an order until they receive it. Cogsy bridges that gap for them.

With Cogsy’s PO flow, Shopify merchants have complete visibility—from the moment they place a purchase order to the moment they receive it. Within Cogsy, you can:

1. Track and mark incoming stock as “Received.”
2. If not all items have yet been received, label the order as “Partially received.”

And they’re relying on the latest inventory data when creating purchase orders, updating POs, receiving stock, and even cross-checking historic POs.

Cogsy’s end-to-end Shopify PO flow opens the doors to new workflows that Shopify merchants don’t have access to. And they can do it without implementing an IMS or switching to a 3PL that supports an end-to-end purchase order flow.

Adapting to uncertainty with agility

Right now is a time of great upheaval for ecommerce DTC brands. Supply chains are volatile (arguably, more than ever). Customer demand fluctuates faster than a 15-second Instagram story.

And as in all of life, things are constantly changing.

The brands that will thrive in this landscape have the agility to adapt to uncertain times and changing scenarios.

That’s why we’ve built our purchase order flow to reflect all that. It’s a powerful way to add the flexibility your brand needs when creating, updating, and receiving purchase orders without compromising the rigor you need in optimal recommendations.

Cogsy’s purchase order flow provides proactive precision and agility, designed to be as simple as clicking a button.

Taking smart and proactive action as changes happen within the business influences what happens next: replenishment. For example, when you go out of stock, sell on backorder.

All of these events trickle down to your brand’s bottom line. So, you want these critical decisions to be based on the most updated, accurate data.

Our priority is making purchasing and order management as optimal and flexible as possible while staying simple and easy to use. We give you agility when you need it and stay out of the way when you don’t.

Start optimizing your Shopify PO flow now

As you already know, sometimes, all you need to optimize your operations and unlock new growth is the right tool. For Shopify brands, Cogsy is that tool.

Cogsy is an end-to-end purchasing platform that provides Shopify merchants the inventory visibility they need to operate with 100% certainty. Here’s what you can do with it:

Never stock out again

Cogsy tracks your inventory levels in real-time. The moment you start running low, we’ll send you friendly replenish alerts, letting you know it’s time to restock.

These alerts are personalized to each SKU’s reorder point. That way, you always get them with enough time to place your next purchase order and for you to get that shipment before you stock out.

Always order the right inventory

Say goodbye to guessing what inventory needs to be on your next purchase order.

Cogsy’s marketing events and growth planning features help you build smart inventory plans that address best-case, worst-case, and most probable scenarios. That way, you can plan for future inventory purchases and set aside the cash you’ll need.

When it’s time to place a purchase order, Cogsy will provide handy restock recommendations, based on these plans. Even better, these recommendations safeguard against potential human errors (like overestimating your inventory needs).

How exactly? By outlining what to order, how much, and where to send that inventory so you only invest in stock that will turn a profit. (You can even bulk-add these recommendations and auto-fill vendor information to expedite how you build out POs.)

Simplify how you manage vendors

Cogsy houses all your important vendor need-to-knows (like contact info and contracts) in one place.

Work with multiple vendors? Coordinate your preferred vendors to clarify who provides what SKU. Every time you add items to your purchase orders, Cogsy will use these preferences to auto-fill the corresponding supplier information. That way, you always place orders with your most reliable supply chain partners.

Make PO management headache-free

Managing multiple purchase orders is… a lot. Luckily, with Cogsy, you can add multiple shipments to one PO. That way, you can procure all the inventory you need while placing fewer POs.

Even better, get a bird’s eye view of where all your purchase orders currently stand, from draft to delivery. So, you know what inventory is on its way and where it’s at. This level of inventory visibility is key to managing your inventory smarter and reaching your revenue goals. In fact, brands that sell with Cogsy generate 40% more revenue on average.

But don’t just take our word for it –  try Cogsy free for 14 days.