Shopify is shutting down Stocky on August 31. I built the replacement. Here's week 1.
Shopify is shutting down Stocky on August 31. I launched the replacement. Here's week 1.
Shopify officially delisted Stocky from the App Store on February 2, 2026.
On August 31, 2026 — 90 days from now — it stops working entirely. Backend APIs disabled. Every merchant still using it needs to migrate.
I launched EZStock right as the delisting happened. Here's everything.
Why EZStock exists
Stocky did one thing well: it gave small Shopify merchants a simple way to manage suppliers, create purchase orders, and reorder before running out of stock.
The alternatives Shopify points merchants toward cost $50–200/month and are built for enterprise warehouses. A 500-SKU store run by one person doesn't need warehouse management software. They need purchase orders and a low-stock alert.
So I built EZStock.
What it does
Add your suppliers — name, email, lead time, currency
Link Shopify product variants to suppliers, set reorder points
EZStock tracks 30-day sales velocity and calculates exactly how many days of stock remain
When something's running low, create a PDF purchase order in one click and email it directly to your supplier
Mark it received — inventory updates automatically in Shopify
No barcode scanning. No warehouse management. No $99/month. Just the inventory → reorder → receive workflow every product-based Shopify store actually needs.
The stack
Remix embedded Shopify app + Vite
PostgreSQL on Railway via Prisma
PDFKit for purchase order PDF generation
Resend for email delivery
Custom Express server — remix-serve doesn't handle bot filtering or static asset control
Total infra cost: ~$10/month
Auto-deploys from GitHub push to main. Code to live in 90 seconds.
Honest launch numbers
Installs: 3
Revenue: $0
Reviews: 0
App Store ranking: invisible
The Shopify App Store cold-start problem is real. No reviews → low ranking → no organic installs → no reviews. Every new app is stuck here.
Mistakes I caught after publishing
"Inventory management" — the #1 searched term in this category — didn't appear once in my app description. I wrote around it without naming it.
My app name was "EZstock ‑ Purchase Orders" with 5 characters unused out of the 30-character limit. App name is the highest-weighted field in App Store search. I was wasting free keyword space.
Both fixed. Should have caught them before submission.
How I'm breaking the cold-start loop
1. The August 31 window. Every Stocky merchant needs to be somewhere else by September. That's 90 days of merchants actively searching "Stocky alternative" with real urgency. I need to be the answer.
2. Product Hunt launch June 9. External traffic and a DA90 backlink regardless of App Store ranking.
3. Shopify App Store ads. Keywords: "inventory management", "purchase orders", "stocky alternative" on Broad match. Previous keywords showed 0 impressions — replaced with clean singular terms.
4. Shopify Community. There's a "Replacement to Stocky?" thread with 2.7k views still active. My account got flagged as spam on the first post — new account + product link, rookie mistake. Working on reinstatement.
5. Direct outreach to my 3 installs. Not asking for reviews. Asking what's missing, what confused them, whether they found value. Reviews follow real conversations.
What's next
5 reviews before the Product Hunt launch on June 9. That's the milestone that changes everything — it's where the App Store algorithm starts showing the app to more merchants organically.
After that: content targeting every "Stocky alternative" and "Shopify inventory management" search query before August 31.
If you're a Shopify merchant currently using Stocky — what's the one thing you're most worried about losing when it shuts down? That's exactly what I want to make sure EZStock handles well.
This is a strong wedge because the timing is doing part of the selling for you.
Most Shopify apps have to manufacture urgency. EZStock does not. Stocky shutting down creates a real migration deadline, so I’d make the next 90 days less about general “inventory management” and more about owning the Stocky replacement conversation everywhere merchants are already looking.
The cleanest angle is probably:
“Still using Stocky? Move your purchase orders and low-stock workflow before August 31.”
That is much sharper than competing broadly with every inventory app.
I’d also treat the 3 installs as your most important asset right now. Not because of reviews first, but because each one can tell you the exact migration fear: losing purchase orders, supplier history, reorder points, or just being forced into expensive software.
That language should drive the App Store listing, PH launch, Shopify Community replies, and direct outreach.
Happy to put a compact version in writing if useful. I’d map the Stocky migration angle, review path, Product Hunt positioning, Shopify Community approach, and a 14-day plan to get the first real merchant conversations.
Thanks Aryan — "Still using Stocky? Move your purchase orders and low-stock workflow before August 31." is sharper than anything in my current listing. Stealing that angle immediately.
The installs-as-research framing is right too. I've been thinking about them as review leads when I should be thinking about them as migration interviews first.
Exactly. The Stocky shutdown gives you a real timing wedge, so I’d treat this less like a normal app launch and more like a migration sprint.
The useful next layer is turning that into the App Store message, Shopify Community replies, and the exact questions to ask those first installs so the language comes from merchants, not assumptions.
Drop your email and I’ll send over a tighter version. It’ll be easier to make useful in writing than turning this into a full migration plan in the thread.