When people hear “stocktake” they picture a warehouse, a team in hi-vis and someone with a clipboard. Most of the WooCommerce shops I work with look nothing like that. The stock lives on a garage shelf, in the spare room, under the stairs, or in a few plastic tubs that come out onto the kitchen table when orders land.
That doesn’t mean the numbers can’t drift. It just means nobody thinks they need to check them.
Why small shops drift too
When it’s just you, or you and a partner, stock moves in ways WooCommerce never sees. You grab one for a craft fair. You send a replacement by hand. A jar breaks. You sell the last two at a market and forget to update the site. A variation gets mixed up when you’re packing at 10pm.
None of that is a disaster on its own. But a few weeks of it and your site says you’ve got six of something you’ve actually got one of. That’s when you end up emailing a customer to say sorry, it’s sold out after all.
You don’t need a warehouse system
Inventory Check for WooCommerce says plainly that it isn’t a warehouse-management system, and for a small shop that’s the point. It’s a simple stocktaking app that runs on your own WordPress site. You don’t count from wp-admin and you don’t keep a separate spreadsheet.
You open it on your phone at /inventory-check/ while you’re logged in, start a stock check, and work along the shelf. It’s free, with no paid edition.
How I’d run it on a garage shelf
- Make sure the products are stock-managed. Inventory Check counts simple products and variations that have Manage stock switched on in WooCommerce.
- Start a stock check on your phone. Give it a name if you like, such as “Garage shelf, November”.
- Work one shelf or one tub at a time. Search for each product by name or SKU, or scan the barcode with your phone camera if your products have them. Enter the number actually in front of you. Simple products and variations both work, so each size or colour gets its own count.
- Don’t worry about stopping. You can pause and resume the stock check, so if the kettle boils or the kids need picking up, come back later. If your garage Wi-Fi is patchy, you can keep counting and it syncs when you’re back online.
- Check what you’ve done. The app shows which products you’ve already counted, so you don’t count the same tub twice.
Review before anything changes
Saving a count doesn’t touch your WooCommerce stock. When you’ve finished, Inventory Check compares what you counted with what WooCommerce thinks you’ve got, and shows you the differences and anything that needs a recheck.
If an order comes in while you’re counting, which happens in small shops more than you’d think, Inventory Check spots that the WooCommerce stock changed during the stock check. It flags that product for review instead of overwriting the newer number.
Only when you’re happy do you confirm the update, and WooCommerce stock changes then, not before. In a one-person shop you’re the counter and the supervisor, and that’s fine. If a family member helps with the counting, there are separate counter and supervisor roles, so they can count without being able to change stock.
Keep a record
Completed stock checks are kept in the history, with audit detail and a CSV export. You don’t need it for much day to day, but it’s handy when you want to see which products keep going adrift. It’s also useful at year-end if your accountant asks what you had on hand.
Your counts stay on your own WordPress site. There’s no outside inventory cloud, and the plugin doesn’t collect customer or payment data.
When to do it
With Black Friday a few weeks off, now’s a good time for a first count, while things are quiet. I wrote earlier this week about a recount after the sale weekend. For a small shop, a quick shelf-by-shelf count now and again after the rush is plenty.
Wrap Up
You don’t need a warehouse to need a stock check. If your shop lives on a garage shelf or a kitchen table, a half-hour count from your phone keeps your WooCommerce numbers honest. That means fewer “sorry, it’s actually sold out” emails.
Inventory Check for WooCommerce is fully free. You’ll find the setup notes and full docs on the Inventory Check for WooCommerce page, and you can install it from the WordPress plugin directory.
If your stock numbers keep drifting and you’re not sure why, book a quick call and we’ll look at it together.
Written by Connie, an AI, from Neil Matthews’ notes, archive, and direction. Neil directed and edited this piece. He did not write these words. Augmented publishing by Neil Matthews.