How does Lightspeed's built-in vendor/purchase-order management map onto Shopify's native tools or Stocky-successor inventory apps?
Short answer
Lightspeed's suppliers and purchase orders map onto Shopify's native purchase orders, Stocky's successor since 31 August 2026, by hand (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). No application programming interface (API) writes them, and apps read purchase orders only from API version 2026-10 (shopify.dev, October 2026). So choose the owner first: native, an inventory app or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
- Stocky
- Gone since 31 August 2026Delisted from the App Store on 2 February 2026; its APIs stopped on 31 August 2026, with read-only export for at least 90 days after, per Shopify's Help Center (October 2026).Source: Shopify Help Center (Migrating from Stocky to Shopify inventory management)
- Native purchase order statuses
- Draft and Ordered onlyReceiving, partial receipt and closure sit on the linked transfer, and marking an order Ordered can't be reversed (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).Source: Shopify Help Center (Creating and managing purchase orders)
- Purchase order API
- Read-only, from API version 2026-10Apps read purchase orders, line items and the supplier's name with a read_inventory_purchase_orders scope. Nothing writes them, though Shopify's Stocky guide still calls the APIs not generally available (October 2026).Sources: Shopify developer docs (inventoryPurchaseOrders); Shopify Help Center (Migrating from Stocky to Shopify inventory management)
- Receiving in Shopify POS
- POS Pro: $89 USD a month per locationBilled yearly. A location must be on POS Pro for staff to receive transfers in POS, and purchase orders are received on their linked transfer (October 2026).Sources: Shopify (POS System Pricing); Shopify Help Center (Fulfilling and receiving inventory transfers in Shopify POS, Receiving inventory from a purchase order)
Deploi’s call
Purchasing stays on Shopify's native purchase orders while one buyer runs it and nothing downstream must create or change one, because no application programming interface (API) writes a purchase order. Our purchase orders and receiving record scores purchasing DEPENDS, and that test sharpens it. If something must write one, native is out on day one. If nothing must, an app still earns its fee once several buyers need forecasting (Deploi verdict, August 2026).
WaitStay on Shopify's native purchase orders while
- One buyer runs purchasing, the profile our purchase orders record scores WAIT (October 2026).
- No accounting system, supplier portal or third-party logistics (3PL) provider must create or change purchase orders, which no Shopify application programming interface (API) can do (shopify.dev, October 2026).
- Stores receive in the admin, or in Shopify point of sale (POS) on POS Pro locations.
BuyMove purchasing to an app or an ERP when
- Several buyers need reorder suggestions, supplier lead times or landed cost, the record's BUY lane for an inventory app.
- Finance needs approvals, accruals or three-way match, which belong in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system's purchasing module.
- Another system must create or change purchase orders; Shopify then receives stock through transfers (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
- Purchasing spans several warehouses, or production needs bills of materials, the cases our inventory system record scores BUY for a full inventory system (October 2026).
Basis: Build or Buy Purchase Orders & Receiving on Shopify?, our Build vs. Buy decision record, scored DEPENDS.
What replaced Stocky in 2026?
Shopify's own admin replaced Stocky, which "is no longer available as of August 31, 2026" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Purchase orders, suppliers and transfers now sit under Products in the admin. Shopify delisted Stocky from the App Store on 2 February 2026, and Stocky's application programming interfaces (APIs) stopped working on 31 August 2026.
The native module grew during 2026. Since June 2026 a purchase order is received through a linked transfer, and incoming stock "can be received from either" the admin or Shopify's point of sale (POS) app (Shopify changelog, June 2026). Sidekick, Shopify's assistant, "drafts the purchase order or transfer for you" from sales data (Shopify Help Center). So a paid app is now a choice, not a requirement.
Shopify's suppliers are simpler than Lightspeed's. Its supplier page says "Payment terms and supplier currencies are specific to individual purchase orders" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026), while its purchase orders overview lists them among supplier details (Shopify Help Center). Check which one your admin follows before you rekey terms.
How does each Lightspeed purchasing feature map to Shopify?
Lightspeed's purchasing features map onto Shopify's native purchase orders for ordering and receiving, but not for supplier data, serial numbers or landed cost. Shopify splits the order from its delivery, so receiving happens on a linked transfer (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
| Lightspeed Retail (X-Series unless noted) | Shopify native | Where the gap goes |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier with contact, addresses and default markup | Supplier with contact and address | Markup, which Lightspeed says doesn't affect products |
| Several suppliers per product, each with a code and price | Supplier SKU (stock keeping unit) and cost from earlier orders | Variant metafields |
| Spreadsheet import; supplier export only on request | No supplier import | Rekeying |
| Open, Sent and Dispatched statuses; email to the supplier | Draft and Ordered; a PDF to send yourself | Approvals and sending |
| Partial deliveries | Each shipment received as it arrives | None |
| Shipping and import duty spread into landed cost (Core and Plus plans) | Shipping and duties per shipment; cost per item fixed | A costing app |
| Serial numbers entered at receipt (R-Series) | No serial field on the item | A transfer metafield, an app or another system |
| Purchase order history | Can't be imported | An archive |
Supplier data moves by hand under the supplier and history migration plan. Serial numbers follow how serialized stock leaves Lightspeed, and lots follow how lot and expiry tracking migrates.
What happens to reorder points and supplier lead times?
Reorder points and supplier lead times lose a native field, because Shopify suggests reorders from sales and keeps lead times only as reference data. Lightspeed suggests "products that are at or below their set reorder point" (Lightspeed, October 2026). Stocky let merchants "manually override the automatic reorder points for specific product variants, as well as the lead time per vendor" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
Shopify's replacements, as of October 2026:
- Sidekick gives "reordering suggestions based on sales velocity and seasonality" (Shopify).
- Shopify Flow low-stock alerts use "thresholds based on your current sales rate" (Shopify).
- Supplier lead times go into variant metafields, which Shopify calls "independent of purchase order ordering and receiving calculations" (Shopify Help Center).
- Minimum and maximum levels go into metafields too, and Sidekick "can help draft a transfer or purchase order that respects your minimum and maximum limits" (Shopify Help Center).
So years of tuned lead times survive as reference data, which means a buyer or a purchasing app has to act on them.
Why does the missing API decide where purchasing lives?
The missing application programming interface (API) decides where purchasing lives, because no integration can write a Shopify purchase order or supplier. Reading arrived in API version 2026-10, after a July 2026 developer preview (Shopify developer changelog, July 2026): apps can read purchase orders, their line items and the supplier's name (shopify.dev, October 2026). No version has a mutation that creates a purchase order, and Shopify's Stocky guide still says "purchase order APIs aren't generally available" (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
Three consequences follow:
- No script creates suppliers or purchase orders. Both move by hand, or into a system with its own importer.
- An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can't post a purchase order into Shopify. Shopify's documented pattern keeps the purchase order in the ERP and receives stock on a blank-origin transfer carrying the ERP's purchase order ID (Shopify Help Center).
- If accounting, a supplier portal or a third-party logistics (3PL) provider must create or change purchase orders, purchasing lives outside Shopify native. Shopify becomes the place stock is received.
Which destination fits: native, an app or an ERP?
The destination follows the buying team: native for one buyer, an app for forecasting, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system when finance owns purchasing. Our purchase orders and receiving record routes it that way: WAIT on native for one buyer, BUY an inventory app at 2 to 5 buyers, BUY the ERP's module when finance leads (checked October 2026).
- Shopify native. One buyer, dozens of suppliers, and nothing downstream that must create or change a purchase order. Receiving in Shopify point of sale (POS) needs POS Pro (Shopify Help Center, October 2026), $89 USD a month per location, billed yearly (Shopify, October 2026).
- A purchasing app. Forecasting, lead times or landed cost. Prediko lists $49 to $199 a month for stores up to $2M in revenue, and an Enterprise plan above that. It rates 4.9 stars from about 260 reviews (Shopify App Store, October 2026). Its listing still says Stocky "suppliers and purchase orders migrate automatically", so ask what that import reads now that Stocky's integrations have stopped. Inventory Planner by Sage rates 4.3 from about 160 reviews and quotes prices on request (Shopify App Store, October 2026).
- An ERP. Approvals, accruals and three-way match, which belong in its purchasing module.
- Nothing, deliberately. A team that raises a handful of purchase orders a year by email.
When should purchasing not move during the migration?
Purchasing should stay put during the migration when the store launch is the deadline, buyers are mid-season, nobody has counted suppliers, or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is coming.
Deploi’s point of view
Our own position, from building on Shopify. Kept apart from the sourced facts above.
- Where we disagree
- The category still answers this question with a list of Stocky replacements, because Stocky's retirement made that list easy to write and easy to monetize. That framing buries the 2026 finding: Shopify built the module and gave it a read-only API in October, with no way to write a purchase order. An app list answers "what can I install". It doesn't answer "can my ERP write this", which decides whether you install anything at all.
- What we tell clients to do first
- Count two numbers before comparing anything: how many suppliers you will rekey, and how many systems must create or change a purchase order. The first sets the labor. The second decides the architecture, and it is the one nobody has in week one.
- What this page adds to our purchase orders record
- The record routes purchasing by the number of buyers and by who owns finance. This page adds the Lightspeed feature map and the integration test: with no API that writes purchase orders, any purchase order another system must create or change lives outside Shopify native.
Decision records behind this answer
When this answer changes
- Shopify adds write access to purchase orders or suppliers, or a supplier query, to the Admin API.
- Shopify adds a supplier import, sending a purchase order to the supplier, or landed cost allocation to native purchase orders.
- Shopify stores reorder points or supplier lead times as fields that drive reorder suggestions.
- Shopify changes the $89 USD POS Pro price per location, or lets locations without POS Pro receive in POS.
- Deploi's purchase orders and receiving record changes its DEPENDS routing.
Follow-up questions
What's inside the number
- How do vendor/supplier records and purchase-order history migrate as data objects during a platform switch, given Shopify has no native supplier-management model?
Supplier records reach Shopify only by hand, and purchase order history doesn't reach it at all.
If you're not the typical case
- How do serial numbers, lot numbers, or expiration-date tracking (common in specific verticals) migrate to Shopify's inventory model from a platform with native support for them?
Serial numbers, lot numbers and expiry dates have no field in Shopify's inventory model, so they move to an app, an upstream system or, for coarse expiry, the variant itself.
- How do serialized or lot-tracked inventory items (common in Lightspeed retail categories like jewelry or bikes) migrate to Shopify's inventory model?
Serialized Lightspeed items move to Shopify as an archive plus a lookup, not as inventory, because Shopify's inventory item has no serial or lot field (Shopify developer docs, October 2026).
Related questions
- How do I migrate from Lightspeed Retail (POS) to Shopify without disrupting in-store sales during the transition?
A Lightspeed Retail to Shopify migration keeps stores selling when registers move only after catalog and inventory are live, one store at a time, because the risk is two systems counting the same stock.
Sources
Every figure on this page traces to one of these. Official and vendor pages are checked on the date shown; Deploi records are our own published decisions.
- Shopify Help Center, Migrating from Stocky to Shopify inventory management
- Shopify Help Center, Creating and managing purchase orders
- Shopify Help Center, Creating and managing suppliers for purchase orders
- Shopify Help Center, Receiving inventory from a purchase order
- Shopify Help Center, Purchase orders
- Shopify changelog, Purchase orders now create transfers to move inventory
- Shopify developer changelog, Physical inventory feature preview
- Shopify Help Center, Low stock
- Shopify, Point of Sale Features
- Shopify, POS System Pricing
- Shopify Help Center, Fulfilling and receiving inventory transfers in Shopify POS
- Lightspeed X-Series support, Managing suppliers
- Lightspeed X-Series support, Creating a purchase order
- Lightspeed X-Series support, Receiving purchase orders
- Lightspeed R-Series support, Receiving items in purchase orders
- Prediko, Prediko Inventory Management on the Shopify App Store
- Inventory Planner by Sage, Inventory Planner by Sage on the Shopify App Store
- Shopify changelog, Define and manage metafields on inventory transfers
- Lightspeed X-Series support, Can I export my supplier list?
- Shopify developer docs, inventoryPurchaseOrders
- Deploi Build vs. Buy, Build or Buy Purchase Orders & Receiving on Shopify?
- Deploi Build vs. Buy, Build or Buy an Inventory Management System on Shopify?