Gostockup project · Dec 2025 – Jul 2026 · live
Moving to LodDepot without stopping sales
How we changed the inventory system while the store kept taking orders, and what we still had to fix after the move.
The inventory system is the most sensitive part of a grocery store. When it’s wrong, the site sells what isn’t on the shelf, the warehouse picks the wrong items and purchasing relies on bad numbers.
When I joined, Gostockup’s stock lived in the parent company’s system and was counted in fractions of a case. We decided to move to LodDepot. There was no ready-made setup for us, so we shaped the system through written specs, by trial and error.
I set one condition from the start: the store doesn’t close for a single day.
Starting point
What we started with
Three things that made a quick, head-on move impossible.
Someone else’s system
Stock depended on the parent company’s system and its rules. Changing anything for our needs was hard.
Fractions of a case
Stock was stored as part of a case: one jar out of six is 0.1667. Rounding slowly piled up into discrepancies.
Orders every day
The store runs seven days a week. Any stock error turns straight into a canceled order or an unhappy customer.
How the move went
- Spec how stock moves: receiving, sale, cancellation, return
- Setup LodDepot shaped for us, by trial and error
- Check on real products, before the switch
- Switch the store kept taking orders
- Fixes separate channels, unit-based stock
The move itself took about two months with a team of three. The fixes happened on the live system.
After the move
Shopify sold stock we didn’t have
The nastiest error only showed up on live orders. LodDepot kept one stock count but sent it to Shopify twice.
Before
- Stock
- 5 units for retail and the same 5 for wholesale. Shopify saw 10.
- What happened
- Once the 5 retail units sold out, the site kept selling the wholesale ones, which were no longer on the shelf.
After
- Retail
- Sells only through Shopify.
- Wholesale
- A separate LodDepot site on its own subdomain. Shopify no longer adds the channels together.
July 2026
Counting in units
Fractions of a case caused rounding errors: 1/6 is 0.1667, and after a few sales the count no longer matched the shelf. The gaps piled up and hit out-of-stocks and returns.
Now stock is kept in units, and cases are converted only at purchase and sale. The source of the creeping discrepancies is gone.
The trade-off
Slower, with no downtime
Moving without stopping is slower and harder than closing the store for a couple of days and switching everything at once. In return, there wasn’t a single day without sales during the move.
My part was the requirements and specs, the sales-channel rule and checking every setting on real products.
The fastest way to reach me is LinkedIn
My full career and notes on the work are there too