AI demand forecasting for restocks

> Cost: Paid. Prediko starts at $49/month (Shopify billing, 14-day trial). The tier depends on your store's sales.

Honest note: this is forecasting software. Prediko predicts demand from your sales history, and its newer "Pia" assistant answers questions about that forecast. It does not buy anything on its own: you approve every order. The case is published by Prediko. The stockout figures (4% to 1% in two months) and "10+ hours a week saved" come from the retailer's team, with no detail on how they were measured. The "75x ROI" headline isn't explained. Treat these as one shop's story.

Prerequisites

• A Shopify store with inventory tracking turned on for the products you want planned.
• A list of your suppliers (brands you buy from), with their lead times (days from order to arrival) and any minimum order.
• Your current planning spreadsheet, so you can compare numbers for the first few weeks.

Step-by-step setup

Step 1. Install Prediko. In the Shopify App Store, search for Prediko and click install. Follow the prompts to create your account and enter your Stock Cover (how many days of stock you want on hand when a delivery arrives). Prediko pulls in your products, sales history, stock and locations from Shopify automatically.

Step 2. Add your suppliers. Go to Settings → Suppliers → Add Supplier. Enter the name, currency, Lead Time in days and any Supplier Minimum Order, then add the SKUs that supplier provides. If you resell many brands, use bulk import: Settings → Import, download the template, fill it in, upload, check and confirm.

Step 3. Look at the forecast. Open the Plan (demand plan). Check a handful of best-sellers against what you know. If a product is clearly off (for example, a one-off spike from a promotion), edit that month rather than trusting it blindly.

Step 4. Find what's about to run out. Open the Buy tab. Use the ready-made views at the top: Stockout, Buy Now, Best Sellers, Reorder. Set Days of Cover for your fast sellers (for example, 60 days). To keep your own list, add a filter, click Save as new view and give it a name. Views are shared with your whole team.

Step 5. Draft the order. Tick the products to reorder, click Create draft order, check Units to Order, then share the purchase order with the supplier as a PDF, Excel file or email.

Step 6. Watch the stockout report. From the main menu open Reporting and use the Stock out and Stockout Risk reports. To get them by email, open the report, click Schedule Send, add recipients, choose how often and the time, and click Schedule.

Step 7. Retire the spreadsheet. Once Prediko's suggestions match your judgement for two or three ordering cycles, stop updating the old sheet.

Easier: let your AI do it

Prediko has an official MCP server. That is a secure "plug" that lets an AI chat app read your Prediko data and, with your permission, draft purchase orders or change settings. It's on every Prediko account, and Prediko shows you a preview before anything changes.

• Claude (all plans): open Settings → Connectors (on some accounts it's Customize → Connectors), click Browse connectors, search Prediko and click Connect, then sign in with your Prediko login. If it isn't listed, choose Add custom connector and paste https://mcp.prediko.io/mcp.
• ChatGPT (paid plan needed): turn on developer mode under Settings → Advanced settings, then go to Settings → Connectors → Create, paste the same address and sign in.

Then ask, for example: "Which of my products will run out in the next 30 days, and what would a draft order for supplier X look like?" Always check the draft before you send it.

What success looks like

Your Stockout view gets shorter week by week, the weekly stockout report arrives in your inbox, and ordering becomes a short review of Prediko's suggestions instead of an afternoon of spreadsheet work.

Common issues & fixes

• A product doesn't show up: inventory tracking is turned off for it in Shopify.
• Suggested quantities look too high: Days of Cover or the forecast is too generous. Lower Days of Cover or edit the plan.
• A supplier's lead time changed: update it in Settings → Suppliers, or every order from that supplier will arrive late.

Optional: Maintenance

• Every month, compare actual sales to the plan and fix any products that are far off.
• Every quarter, update supplier lead times and minimum orders.

Copy-paste prompt

I run a Shopify shop that resells about [NUMBER] products from [NUMBER] brands. Here is last month's stockout list from my inventory tool: [PASTE PRODUCT, STOCK, DAILY SALES, SUPPLIER LEAD TIME].
1. Sort these into "order this week", "order next week" and "can wait", and explain why in one line each.
2. Suggest a sensible Days of Cover for fast sellers vs slow sellers, given the lead times.
3. Write a short, polite email to a supplier asking to confirm a delivery date for an order.
Don't invent any numbers. If something is missing, ask me.

Sources

• Case: Prediko case study (UK healthy-living retailer). Credit: the retailer's operations team (vendor-published).
• Prediko Help: Account & onboarding
• Prediko Help: How to add a Supplier
• Prediko Help: Importing in bulk
• Prediko Help: Views on the Buy Table
• Prediko Help: How to create a Purchase Order
• Prediko Help: Reports
• Prediko Help: Can I schedule reports to my inbox?
• Prediko Help: Connect Prediko to AI agents
• Prediko pricing