Instant v.s. Scheduled: What's the difference?
A threshold is the level at which an item counts as low. Set a threshold of 5 on a variant, and Stockie alerts you when its available inventory reaches 5.
Two things about how that works catch people out, and both are deliberate.
When an alert triggers
A threshold of 5 triggers at 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. It is not a match on the exact number.
So an alert arriving when stock is 4 is correct, not a miss - the item was at or below 5 when Stockie looked. If stock drops from 8 to 4 in one order, the alert fires at 4, because that is where the stock was when the check ran.
One alert per crossing
Once an item is below its threshold, it does not alert again on every subsequent sale.
An item at threshold 5 dropping to 4 alerts once. Selling three more does not send three more alerts. Stock has to go back above the threshold and fall below it again before the next alert.
That is why you do not get a countdown of 4, 3, 2, 1. You are being told "this item needs attention", once, not being given a running commentary.
In Smart mode the same rule applies to reorder points: an item alerts when it enters your notification window, and does not alert again until it has come back out of the window and re-entered it.
The rule is per notification, not per product. If two notifications both watch a variant and it crosses both their thresholds, both send - so overlapping notifications are the usual reason for what looks like a duplicate alert.
If you want the current picture rather than a crossing event, a scheduled notification gives you that. It lists everything at or below its threshold each time it sends, however long it has been there, as long as Exclude already notified products until restocked is left off. That gives you the standing list an instant alert deliberately does not.
Some changes reset this
A few changes clear a notification's record of what it has already alerted on:
- Switching between instant and scheduled
- Changing the Exclude already notified products until restocked setting
- Changing what thresholds are compared with
- Changing how inventory is combined across locations
After one of these, items already at or below their threshold count as fresh crossings and can alert again on the next inventory change. That can look like a burst of duplicates if you are not expecting it.
Changing threshold numbers, or the products a notification watches, keeps the record as it is.
Instant or scheduled
Instant notifications are triggered by an inventory change and tell you when something crosses its threshold.
Scheduled notifications go out at a time you choose and list everything at or below its threshold at that moment.
Instant and daily scheduled notifications are available on Basic and above. Many stores use both: instant for lines that matter enough to interrupt you, scheduled for a regular review.
Default and per-variant thresholds
A notification carries a default threshold applied to everything it watches.
On Advanced and above you can also set a different threshold on individual variants where the default does not fit - a fast seller may warrant 50 while a slow one is fine at 2. Set the default for the common case and override the exceptions.
On Free and Basic, the default threshold is the only one available, so a notification watches everything at the same level.
Incoming inventory changes the comparison
By default, a threshold is compared against your available inventory in Shopify.
Turn on Include incoming inventory and stock already on its way is added before the comparison, so an item alerts only if available plus incoming is still at or below its threshold. See Incoming inventory.
There is no upper cut-off
You cannot restrict alerts to items above a certain level. There is no "alert me only between 10 and 50" - a threshold is a single lower bound, and everything at or below it is included.
Where you need to exclude high-stock lines, the lever is which products the notification watches rather than a second bound. Scope the notification to the products you care about.