WooCommerce Reorder Report with AI: Stock vs Selling Rate

A WooCommerce reorder report answers one practical question: at the rate each product really sells, which one runs out first, and how many days are left before it does. With BEAR's MCP server you get that report by asking an AI assistant in plain words. It sets the stock on hand next to the selling rate of every product and variation, sorts the list by days of stock left, and lets you act on the result in the same conversation. Nothing in the shop changes until you have seen a preview and confirmed it.

The reorder report in one question

How fast is my stock selling, and when does it run out?

That is BEAR's ready-made When to buy more question. "What do I need to reorder?" leads to the same report. The assistant runs it over the last six months and answers with a table, or a bar chart if your assistant can draw one. Each product or variation that sold in the period gets one row, like these illustrative ones:

The real answer also gives each row's SKU and stock status, and says whose stock the number is: the item's own, a stock shared by all variations of the product, or no tracking at all. Read the table from the top. The apron has two and a half weeks left, so it needs an order now. The mug is covered for months. The tea towels sell faster than either, but nobody counts them, so WooCommerce will never warn you about them. Spotting a best seller without stock control is one of the findings this report is built for.

Under the table the answer names the period, how many items were looked at, and how up to date the WooCommerce Analytics figures are. The ready-made questions are a starting point, so you can also ask for another period, one category, or a different set of orders, as shown below.

Before you start

You need BEAR 2.2.4 with its MCP server switched on, a shop served over HTTPS, and an AI assistant that can use MCP connectors, such as Claude in the browser, the desktop app or Claude Code. The selling rate is read from WooCommerce Analytics, so Analytics must be enabled and must have finished importing your past orders. Without the Analytics tables the report says sales figures are not available. With an import still running, it shows fewer sales than you really had. The MCP server documentation shows how to connect the assistant.

How the selling rate and days of stock are calculated

You order goods based on these numbers, so here is exactly what goes into them.

• Period. The ready-made reorder question looks back six months, and you can ask for any other window. When the assistant runs the underlying stock report without a period, it covers the last 30 days. Dates are read in your shop's time zone.
• Which orders count. Completed, processing and on hold. Pending payment, failed, cancelled and refunded orders do not count. You can narrow it further, for example by leaving out on-hold orders.
• Refunds. The rate counts units as they left the shelf. A partial refund does not reduce it. An order refunded in full drops out, because its status becomes Refunded.
• Units per day. Units sold divided by the number of days in the period, days without sales included. A product launched three weeks ago therefore looks slower in a six-month report than it is. Ask for a shorter period for new products.
• Per week and per month. The same rate times 7 and times 30. They are not separate measurements, just easier numbers to plan a purchase with: nobody orders around 0.072 units a day, but two a month is something you can act on.
• Days of stock. Stock on hand divided by units per day, rounded to whole days. The cell is empty when the product does not track stock or sold nothing. It is below zero when the stock is below zero, which happens when items were sold on backorder. Those rows sit at the very top.
• Variations. Each variation is its own row, because a size that outsells its siblings four to one disappears once it is added up into the parent. Variable parents are left out, because their sales are counted on their variations.
• Shared stock. When a product's variations sell from one stock kept on the parent, each of them shows the shared number. Its days of stock use only that variation's own rate, though, so the cover looks longer than it is. Add up the rates of the variations, or ask the assistant to: "For products whose variations share one stock, add up their rates and give me the days for the shared stock."
• How much is looked at. Across the whole shop the report looks at the items that sold in the period, the busiest 1,000 at most. The answer says when more qualified than were looked at. It returns 50 rows by default and up to 200 when you ask.

A warning sign, not a forecast

The rate is a flat average over the period, so it assumes demand stays as it was. Seasons, promotions and a product going viral all break that assumption. Read days of stock as a warning sign and compare it with your supplier's lead time plus a safety margin. With a 21-day delivery time and 10 days of margin, everything under 31 days needs an order today. A product with three weeks of cover needs attention now, not in three weeks.

Three reports: when to buy, what is left, what sells fastest

BEAR has three ready-made stock questions built on the same calculation. They differ in period and in which products they include:

All three come back sorted by days of stock, shortest first. Items with an empty days column, those not tracked, go to the bottom. On a shop where more items sold than fit in one answer, the bottom of the list is where items get cut off. Two things follow from that:

• To find the untracked best sellers on a large shop, ask for them directly: "Which products that don't track stock sold in the last six months, and how many units?"
• For a ranking by units, do not rely on What sells fastest on a large shop. Ask for best sellers instead: "Top 20 best sellers by units sold in the last 3 months, each variation separately." That runs the sales ranking, which orders the whole catalogue by units. The WooCommerce sales report guide covers it in detail.

The opposite end, products that sold nothing, has its own report: What is not moving. That list and what to do with it are covered in WooCommerce stock management with AI.

Change the period, the products or the orders counted

The ready-made question is only a shortcut. The report underneath takes a period, a set of products and the order statuses to count:

• "Run the reorder report for the last 12 months." A longer window evens out short peaks. A shorter one reacts faster to a trend.
• "Reorder report for the Kitchen category only, variations included." The assistant first selects the category's products with their variations, then runs the report on that selection. A selection-based report takes at most 500 items. A larger set is refused with a request to narrow it.
• "Leave out on-hold orders." Useful when many bank transfer orders are never paid and would make the rate look higher than it is.
• "Selling rate between 1 March and 31 May, against today's stock." This compares a past season with what you hold now. Check the period line of the answer: it should end on 31 May. The ready-made questions always run up to today, so if the period ends today, ask the assistant to run the stock report itself with both dates.

A report on a selection leaves out products that do not track stock unless you ask for them. Add "including products that don't track stock" when you want them in.

Acting on the reorder report in the same chat

The report comes back with the IDs of the items in it, so the next step can follow straight away. Every change below goes through BEAR's preview, a count you confirm, and History. The details of each stock field are in WooCommerce stock management with AI.

• Book in the delivery. "The aprons arrived: add 60 to the stock of Linen apron, natural." When different products get different amounts, the assistant makes one change per product or group, each with its own preview, or single edits for a few items.
• Start counting a best seller. "Turn on stock management for the tea towel set and set its stock to 140." Tracking has to come first in the request, or WooCommerce drops the number. If the order is wrong, the preview shows it.
• Keep selling while you wait. "Allow backorders, but notify customers, for the aprons." This is a standing setting, so ask for Do not allow again once the delivery is in. It works only on products that track stock. In the free version, backorders are closed to the assistant and are changed by hand in BEAR's editor.
• Take discontinued items off sale. "Set the stock of the discontinued mugs to 0." Each of them then shows as out of stock, unless backorders are allowed for it, in which case it shows as on backorder.

In a shop with variable products, a reorder list is mostly variations. Simple products from the list are selected exactly. A variation is selected through its parent product, and that brings in all of the product's variations. So compare the count in the preview with the rows you meant, or ask for single edits by SKU. If something went wrong, ask the assistant to undo it at once. A rollback writes back the old numbers exactly, even when orders have changed the stock since your change, so it is best done straight away. The History tab of BEAR lists every change, by hand or by assistant.

Charts in the chat

The reorder and fast-mover reports come with a hint that they read best as a bar chart. Assistants that can render HTML, such as Claude in the browser and in the desktop app, draw it in the conversation. Other assistants give you the same numbers as a text table. You can describe the picture you want:

• "The reorder list as a table with search and paging, sorted by days of stock."
• "Days of stock for the 15 items that run out first, as bars, with a line at 30 days."
• "Units per week for the Kitchen category as columns, then switch to a table."

Switching between a chart and a table costs nothing, because the numbers are already in the conversation. A new period or another category is a new question, and the assistant goes back to the shop for fresh figures. Product images do not show in these charts: the sandbox that draws them cannot load files from your shop's domain.

Ready prompts for a WooCommerce reorder report

• "What do I need to reorder? Show days of stock left, shortest first."
• "Which products run out within 30 days at the current selling rate?"
• "Reorder report for the last 90 days, units per week and per month."
• "Reorder report for the Kitchen category only, variations included."
• "Which sizes of the Merino Hoodie sell fastest, and how many days of each are left?"
• "Top 20 best sellers by units sold in the last 3 months, each variation separately."
• "Which products that don't track stock sold in the last six months?"
• "Leave out on-hold orders and run the reorder report again."
• "Show the reorder list as bars of days of stock, the 15 shortest."
• "The delivery arrived: add 60 to the stock of the linen aprons."

Checklist

• WooCommerce Analytics is enabled and has imported your past orders. The answer says how up to date it is.
• Check the period line of every answer, especially when you asked for a closed date range.
• Compare days of stock with your supplier's lead time plus a safety margin, not with zero.
• For new products, use a shorter period, or the rate looks too low.
• For variations sharing one stock, add up their rates before trusting the days.
• Look at the rows with an empty days column: a best seller there has no stock control.
• Before any change that follows from the report, check the count in the preview.

If the figures in your shop do not match what is described here, ask on the BEAR support forum.

Questions

Why is a product missing from my reorder report?

It sold nothing in the period, so it has no rate. It may be a variable parent, whose variations are listed instead. The order that would include it may be pending, failed or cancelled, or not yet imported by WooCommerce Analytics. Or the product is further down the list than the rows shown: ask for more rows or for that product by name.

Why is days of stock empty or negative for some rows?

Empty means the product does not track stock, or it sold nothing in the period. Negative means the stock is already below zero, because orders were taken on backorder. Those items are past due for an order.

Does the reorder report know my supplier's delivery time?

No. WooCommerce does not store lead times, and the report does not guess one. Tell the assistant yours ("our supplier needs three weeks") and ask for everything with less cover than that.

Is the reorder report available in the free version of BEAR?

Yes. Reports only read, and the free version runs them in full. The limits of the free version apply to changes made after the report: at most 100 products every 30 minutes, and no backorder changes through the assistant. The full list is in free version limitations.