Shopify "Inventory Not Tracked": What Does It Mean?
Learn how to track quantity in Shopify to manage stock levels, avoid overselling, and keep your store organized. This simple step helps ensure accurate product availability for a better customer experience.
Updated February 7, 2025.
If you want to be a successful Shopify seller with streamlined inventory management, you should keep track of all your products. By tracking your inventory, you'll stay in control of everything from orders to stock levels. However, you may discover that not all of your inventory is being tracked on Shopify, which can be frustrating and interfere with your sales process.
It’s essential to address these issues quickly to avoid disruptions and ensure you're offering customers accurate product availability. Effective inventory management can ultimately boost both efficiency and customer satisfaction.
» Understand inventory turnover and its impact on your profitability
Why Are Shopify Items Not Tracked?
In Shopify, "inventory not tracked" means that the specific product or variant you're looking at doesn't have its stock levels monitored within the Shopify system.
There are a couple of reasons why this might be the case:
- You've chosen not to track inventory levels for a specific product. If so, you can set things up so your customers see a message saying "Inventory not tracked" instead of the actual inventory level. This way, they know you're not keeping count of how many you have in stock.
- Your product has a variant that's set to "Don't track inventory." This usually happens with products that have unlimited stock, like digital downloads or services. Since you can't really run out of those, there's no need to track them.
- You're using a third-party app to fulfill your products. This can happen when you're using a dropshipping app or a print-on-demand service that manages the inventory for you, so Shopify doesn't need to track the inventory levels directly.
» Need to understand Shopify's inventory rules? Find out more about Shopify's variant inventory policies
How to Enable Inventory Tracking on Shopify
To stop Shopify from displaying the "Inventory not tracked" message, you'll need to enable inventory tracking using the following steps:
- Go to Products in your Shopify admin.
- Select the product you want to track by clicking on the name.
- If the product has variants, scroll down to the variant section.
- Select the Edit button beside the variant you want to track.
- In the Inventory section, select Track Quantity.
- Check the box Continue Selling When Out of Stock if you want consumers to be able to buy the item even if it's out of stock.
- Adjust the quantity information for each site in the Quantity section and select a reason, if necessary.
- Click Save.
» Need to update your inventory fast? Learn how to bulk edit your Shopify inventory in just seconds and stay ahead
How to Avoid "Inventory Not Tracked" in the Future
If you want to avoid seeing the "Inventory not tracked" message in your Shopify store, you need to make sure you've turned on inventory tracking for all your products.
When you set up inventory tracking for a product, you can control the number of units available for each variant.
So, if you've got a T-shirt that comes in different sizes and colors, you can specify how many you have of each combination. This level of control is very helpful for managing your out-of-stock inventory.
» Automate your inventory management for seamless operations. Discover how automated systems can save you time and reduce errors
Best Practices for Variant Inventory Management
Effectively managing variant inventory, especially for products with multiple options like size, color, or material combinations, requires a strategic approach. Here’s how to streamline the process:
1. Regular variant audits and stock checks
Conducting regular audits and physical stock checks allows you to minimize discrepancies between recorded and actual stock levels across different variants. By addressing these issues, you can improve customer experience, reduce errors, avoid stockouts, and ensure timely fulfillment of customer demand.
2. Use Clear Naming Conventions
Organize your variants using consistent and descriptive names (e.g., "Red - Large") to avoid confusion. This will not only make it easier for your customers to navigate your store but also help you manage stock effectively across multiple options.
3. Set Up Automated Restock Alerts
With Egnition's Out-of-Stock Police, you can set up automated alerts for low-stock variants so you can act quickly to restock in time. By receiving notifications, you’ll be able to keep your inventory levels in check and avoid the frustration of running out of stock on popular items.
4. Prioritize High-Demand Variants
Identify your best-selling variants and prioritize them for restocking. By focusing on high-demand options first, you ensure that you meet customer expectations and avoid losing sales on your most popular products.
5. Group Similar Variants
Organize variants with similar attributes into collections, making it easier for customers to find products that meet their needs. This also helps you manage stock more efficiently by applying updates across related variants at once.
» Here's everything you need to know about inventory management solutions
3 EGNITION Apps for Shopify Inventory Automation
Automation is essential for efficient Shopify inventory management, allowing you to streamline processes and reduce manual errors. With the right tools, you can easily maintain real-time inventory tracking across your store.
Here are three Egnition apps that can help automate and improve your inventory management:
1. Out-of-Stock Police
If you want a simple way to organize your collections, keep your inventory tracking on point, and always know when you're running low on stock, using an app like Egnition's Out-of-Stock Police is a smart move.
With this app, you can make sure your Shopify store doesn't show the "Inventory not tracked" message and improve your customers' shopping experience.
» Evaluate the pros and cons of bulk inventory management to decide if it's right for your Shopify store
Discover more benefits of Out-of-Stock Police for improving your inventory tracking:
» Want to keep selling your out-of-stock items? Here's what to consider
2. Bestsellers reSort
This is another powerful tool that can simplify your Shopify inventory management. This app automates the sorting and organization of products in collections, using advanced rules based on sales, revenue, stock levels, and more.
Bestsellers reSort
Enhance your inventory management and optimize your product range with Bestsellers reSort.
Push new products up, push out-of-stock items down, and drive growth automatically
Sort products automatically with advanced rules
Showcase featured products at the top with manual placement or scheduled timing
3. Multi-Store Sync Power
Egnition’s Multi-Store Sync Power simplifies Shopify inventory management by syncing stock levels across multiple stores in real time.
This reduces the risk of inventory not tracked Shopify, prevents overselling, and offers customizable mapping options for accurate product organization. Its detailed analytics and user-friendly interface help streamline operations and improve sales strategies effortlessly.
Multistore Management for Shopify
Automate your multistore management with EGNITION's Multi-Store Sync Power
Automated inventory syncing across stores and locations
Catch errors in SKUs and barcodes
Immediate updates to product fields in all stores
Ensuring Shopify Inventory Tracking and Management
With a better understanding of what "Inventory not tracked" in Shopify means, you can take simple steps to enable inventory tracking for all your Shopify products and prevent this message from appearing in the future
What's more, with the help of a dedicated inventory management app, you can rely on streamlined inventory management to simplify your business processes and boost your bottom line through improved customer experience.
» Enhance your Shopify store through automation and take full control of your inventory management
