DEV Community: WebKoding

Dead Stock is Silently Killing Your WooCommerce Store (And How to Find It)

WebKoding — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:20:33 +0000

Most WooCommerce store owners focus on what's selling. But the real profit killer is what isn't selling — dead stock.

What is dead stock?

Dead stock is inventory that hasn't sold in 60+ days and has more than a few weeks of stock remaining. It's capital sitting in your warehouse doing nothing — and often getting worse:

Storage costs keep accumulating
Products may expire, go out of fashion, or become obsolete
Cash that could fund better-selling products is locked up
Eventually it becomes a write-off

The detection formula

In StockPulse, I flag a product as dead stock when:

current_stock > minimum_threshold
AND
units_sold_last_60_days = 0
AND
days_of_stock_remaining > 60

Simple, but surprisingly revealing when you run it across your full catalog.

What to do with dead stock

1. Bundle it — pair slow movers with bestsellers. A customer buying a $50 product might add a $10 dead-stock item for $5.

2. Run a clearance sale — even 20-30% margin recovery is better than a full write-off.

3. Return to supplier — if your agreement allows it, especially for newer inventory.

4. Liquidate wholesale — sell in bulk at cost to clear warehouse space.

5. Donate for tax benefit — in some countries, donated inventory generates a tax deduction.

Prevention with reorder discipline

The best cure is prevention. StockPulse's reorder point system means you only reorder what you're actually selling, and in quantities aligned with your real velocity — not gut feeling or "round numbers."

If your daily velocity on a product is 0.3 units/day and your lead time is 14 days, you need a reorder point of about 6 units — not the 50 you ordered "just in case."

See your dead stock in real time

The StockPulse Reports page shows all dead stock products at a glance, sorted by estimated capital tied up. It's often the first time store owners see the full picture — and the numbers are usually surprising.

Try the live demo at https://stockpulse.webkodingtheme.com or grab it on CodeCanyon: https://codecanyon.net/item/stockpulse-inventory-forecast-sales-intelligence-for-woocommerce/62458013

How I Implemented Inventory Forecasting Algorithms in a WordPress Plugin

WebKoding — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:17:52 +0000

When building StockPulse, the core challenge was: how do you calculate reliable inventory forecasts when different products have wildly different sales patterns?

Here's a breakdown of the forecasting engine I built.

Three velocity algorithms, automatic selection

The SP_Velocity_Calculator class implements three approaches:

Simple Moving Average (SMA) — baseline, used when less than 90 days of data exists:

$velocity = array_sum($daily_sales) / count($daily_sales);

Weighted Moving Average (WMA) — recent days get higher weight:

$total_weight = ($n * ($n + 1)) / 2;
$weighted_sum = 0;
foreach ($daily_sales as $i => $sales) {
    $weight = $i + 1;
    $weighted_sum += $sales * $weight;
}
$velocity = $weighted_sum / $total_weight;

Exponential Smoothing — alpha=0.3 by default (configurable per product):

$smoothed = $daily_sales[0];
foreach (array_slice($daily_sales, 1) as $actual) {
    $smoothed = ($alpha * $actual) + ((1 - $alpha) * $smoothed);
}
$velocity = $smoothed;

The engine auto-selects: less than 90 days of history → SMA, 90+ days → WMA.

Reorder point formula

public function calculate_reorder_point(
    float $daily_velocity,
    int $lead_time_days
): float {
    $safety_stock = $daily_velocity * ($lead_time_days * 0.25);
    return ($daily_velocity * $lead_time_days) + $safety_stock;
}

The 25% safety buffer accounts for supplier delays and demand spikes.

Seasonal adjustment

$seasonal_coefficient = $same_period_last_year / $last_month_average;
$adjusted_velocity = $base_velocity * $seasonal_coefficient;

This naturally handles Christmas spikes, summer slowdowns, etc.

HPOS compatibility

WooCommerce's High-Performance Order Storage moved orders to custom tables. Instead of querying wp_posts directly:

$orders = wc_get_orders([
    'status'     => ['wc-completed'],
    'date_after' => date('Y-m-d', strtotime('-90 days')),
    'return'     => 'ids',
    'limit'      => -1,
]);

Caching architecture

All calculations are stored in wp_stockpulse_product_cache with a 24-hour TTL, refreshed daily via WP-Cron.

What's next

v1.1 will add purchase order PDF generator and ABC analysis.

I Built a WooCommerce Inventory Forecasting Plugin — Self-Hosted, No Monthly Fees

WebKoding — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:13:29 +0000

After months of development, I just launched StockPulse — a WooCommerce plugin that turns your order history into an inventory intelligence system.

The problem I was solving

Running a WooCommerce store means constantly answering questions like:

"How many days of stock do I have left for each product?"
"When should I reorder before I run out?"
"Which products have been sitting in my warehouse for 60+ days with zero sales?"

The existing solutions are either expensive SaaS tools ($49–199/month) or ancient CodeCanyon plugins that haven't been updated since 2017. I wanted something self-hosted, one-time payment, no external API calls.

What StockPulse does

Days of Stock Remaining — calculates how many days your current stock will last based on your actual sales velocity.

Smart Reorder Points — tells you exactly when to reorder, factoring in your supplier lead time plus a 25% safety buffer:

reorder_point = (daily_velocity × lead_time_days) + safety_stock
safety_stock = daily_velocity × (lead_time_days × 0.25)

Dead Stock Detection — flags products with 60+ days of stock and zero recent sales so you can run promotions before they become a write-off.

30/60/90-day demand forecasts — projects future demand using three algorithms (SMA, WMA, Exponential Smoothing) with automatic selection based on data availability.

Email alerts — notifies you when products hit critical stock levels.

CSV export — full data export for deeper analysis.

The tech stack

Built with PHP 7.4+ (OOP, PSR-4 structure), vanilla JS + Chart.js for the admin dashboard, WordPress REST API for data endpoints, and WP-Cron for daily cache refresh.

Fully HPOS-compatible (uses wc_get_orders() — no raw SQL on order tables).

Why self-hosted matters

All calculations happen on your server
No data leaves your store
GDPR compliant by design
No API key to manage, no service to go down

Live demo + CodeCanyon

Demo: https://stockpulse.webkodingtheme.com
CodeCanyon: https://codecanyon.net/item/stockpulse-inventory-forecast-sales-intelligence-for-woocommerce/62458013

Would love feedback from the WooCommerce/WordPress dev community. What features would you want to see in v1.1?