Stovura tells you what to reorder, how much, in which sizes and colours, and by when — built specifically for apparel. Here are the six steps from install to your first buy list. Do them in order the first time — each one builds on the last.
Sync your products
This is the first thing to do — nothing else works until your catalog is in Stovura. One click pulls every product, its variants, your locations, and your current inventory from Shopify, and automatically detects which option is size and which is colour.
It's safe to re-run anytime — records are updated in place, and it's how you bring in new styles later. When it finishes, you'll see a summary of what synced and whether anything needs your review.
Back up your sales history
This is a separate button on the same page — and an important one. Stovura's forecast learns from your past sales, so it needs your history before it can recommend anything.
It exports your last 12 months of orders and stores them as daily units-sold totals per variant (only the totals — no order details or customer information). On busy stores this can take a few minutes.
Don't skip this. Without sales history, every style shows as "NEW" and Stovura won't recommend a quantity for it — it won't guess without a demand pattern.
Check your size & colour mapping
Stovura needs to know which option is size and which is colour — that's what makes size curves and broken-run detection work. Most of this is detected automatically during the sync, so for many stores there's nothing to do here.
Open Catalog mapping to review. Each option shows its role (Size / Colour / Third axis / Ignore), a confidence level (High / Medium / Low), and whether it was set automatically or by you. Anything Stovura couldn't confidently classify appears in a "Needs your attention" section — pick the right role from the dropdown (or use Make primary size if a product has competing size options), then click Apply changes. Your choices stick across future syncs.
Note: you may also see a page called Size & colour mapping in the menu — that's an older per-product view. For most setups, Catalog mapping is the page to use.
Generate your forecast
Now that Stovura has your catalog, sales history, and mapping, it can build your demand forecast. This doesn't happen automatically — click Generate Forecast on the dashboard.
Stovura computes weekly demand per size for every style, using your completed sales weeks (it excludes the current in-progress week, which would read artificially low, plus promo and stockout weeks that would distort the picture). The dashboard shows a "Forecast generated" timestamp so you always know how fresh it is.
Tip: back up your sales (Step 2) before generating, so the forecast reflects your latest orders. Going forward, regenerate early each week once the prior week has closed.
Enter your supplier terms
Stovura needs your supplier terms to calculate how much to order and by when. There are two levels:
- Shop defaults — on the Reorder settings page, set your lead time, service level, review period, and cover limits, then Save defaults. These apply to every style unless overridden.
- Per-style / per-colourway terms — on the Import supplier settings page: choose your MOQ basis (per colour or per style) and save it before your first import, download the pre-filled worksheet, enter lead time / MOQ / case pack in the rows you want, then upload it back, preview the matches, and apply them.
You can also override terms for a single style on that style's page, including entering incoming stock that's on the way.
Generate your buy list
This is the payoff. Click Generate buy-list, and Stovura composes your forecast, your reorder settings, and your MOQ/case-pack rules into one clear list per style. Each style gets a state that tells you what to do:
- Order now — reorder today
- Order soon — approaching its reorder point (with an estimated date)
- MOQ hold — demand doesn't yet justify the supplier minimum
- Overstocked — a markdown candidate
- OK — no action needed
Expand any style to see the recommendation split across colours and sizes, with a plain-language "Why?" explaining it. When you're ready, use Export CSV to send it to your supplier — you choose whether to include just the "order now" items (a clean purchase order) or a fuller planning view.
You're set up
From here, your rhythm is simple:
- Weekly-ish: back up your sales, regenerate your forecast early in the week, then generate your buy list and order what it recommends.
- As needed: regenerate the buy list after a delivery or a settings change, act on alerts, and tag promotional weeks so they don't skew your forecast.
The dashboard always shows when your forecast was last generated, so you'll never be guessing whether your numbers are current.
Quick troubleshooting
- Every style shows as "NEW."
- You haven't backed up your sales history yet (Step 2), or the forecast hasn't been generated (Step 4). Brand-new styles with no sales pattern also show this — that's expected.
- The buy list is empty.
- Click Generate buy-list (Step 6). It doesn't populate automatically — and it needs a forecast first (Step 4).
- Expected demand shows a dash (—).
- No forecast has been generated yet. Click Generate Forecast on the dashboard.
- A product isn't mapped correctly.
- Open Catalog mapping, set the correct role for its options, and click Apply changes. Your fix will stick across future syncs.
- My mapping page is empty.
- Run Product sync first — the mapping pages populate from your synced catalog.
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