Low-stock alerts and inventory thresholds

When a product's stock crosses your alert threshold, VeloCMS emails the tenant owner so you can reorder before you stock out. Alerts fire in two scenarios: immediately after a checkout that drops a variant below threshold, and during the nightly scan at 07:00 UTC, which catches products drifting down through manual edits or returns.

Quick start — setting up your first alert

Go to Admin > Settings > Inventory. You'll see the global low-stock threshold field — it defaults to 5, meaning any product that dips to 5 units or fewer will trigger an alert. Enter a number that reflects your typical reorder lead time. If it takes you two weeks to restock, set the threshold high enough that an alert at that number gives you enough time to place the order. Save the settings. That's it — alerts are now active for every product unless you've disabled them per-product.

Setting the global threshold

Admin > Settings > Inventory has a single 'Low stock threshold' field. Any product without its own override uses this number. The default is 5 — set it higher if your turnover is fast and you need more lead time, lower if you run a boutique with small batches.

Per-product overrides

The product detail page at Admin > Products > [id] has a 'Stock settings' section. Enter a custom threshold to override the global default for this product specifically — useful when one SKU has a longer lead time or needs a larger safety buffer. The 'Alert me' toggle silences alerts entirely for this product, for fast-movers where you'd rather watch the dashboard manually.

How the nightly scan works

The nightly stock scan runs at 07:00 UTC every day, regardless of checkout activity. It checks every active product variant against the applicable threshold (per-product override if set, global default otherwise) and sends a batched alert email if any variants are below the line. This catches stock reductions that don't come from checkouts — manual stock corrections, returns that reduced inventory, or import errors that zeroed a variant. The email groups all low-stock products into one message rather than sending one per SKU, so you won't wake up to 40 separate alert emails after a busy day.

Alert delivery and troubleshooting

Alerts go to the tenant owner's email address — the one used to create the account. There's currently no way to CC additional addresses from within VeloCMS, though you can forward from your email client or set up an email alias. If you're not receiving alerts despite having stock below threshold, check two things: first, that the 'Alert me' toggle on the product page is enabled; second, that the global threshold isn't set to 0 (which disables all alerts at the tenant level).

Common pitfalls

Setting the threshold too low (like 1 or 2) means you'll get the alert right when you're already dangerously close to stockout — not enough runway to actually reorder in time. A threshold of 10–15 for products with a two-week supplier lead time is more realistic. Another pitfall: the alert fires per-variant, not per-product. If you have a shirt in sizes XS–XXL and only the XL is low, the alert will name the XL variant specifically. Read the alert emails carefully and restock that specific variant, not the whole product. Finally, if you disable alerts globally via threshold=0 during a launch rush, remember to re-enable them afterward — it's easy to forget.

Managing product variants (size × color → SKUs) — how variant-level stock tracking works
Setting up your storefront from onboarding — initial inventory configuration
Analytics for your shop — viewing stock trends in the dashboard

Setting the global threshold to 0 disables all low-stock alerts at the tenant level. Useful during a launch when stock changes hourly and the alert volume would overwhelm the inbox.