77% of Bad Reviews Aren’t About Your Product: 5 Shopify Inventory Mistakes

A bad customer review might have nothing to do with your product.

Alan Grimsley from Inventory Planner joins Nick to explain why 77% of negative reviews can be traced back to operational problems - and the five Shopify inventory mistakes that quietly damage cash flow, sales and customer trust.

Drawing on his experience across PayPal, Shopify and Sage, Alan explains how overstock, stockouts, unreliable data, poorly planned campaigns and inaccurate supplier lead times can hold back even fast-growing ecommerce brands.

You’ll learn:

• Why excess stock could be consuming your growth budget
• How stockouts send customers and ad spend to competitors
• When spreadsheets stop working for growing Shopify brands
• Why marketing and inventory planning must work together
• How inaccurate lead times undermine your entire forecast

Alan also shares lessons from AYBL, Wild & Stone and Astrid & Miyu, including how better inventory forecasting can protect cash flow, reduce excess stock and keep bestselling products available.

In this episode:
(00:00) - Why most Shopify brands lose money on inventory
(03:06) - Mistake #1: Running out of stock
(08:39) - Mistake #2: Overstock and cash flow problems
(20:15) - Mistake #3: Data and inventory visibility
(25:27) - Mistake #4: Marketing without inventory
(31:46) - Mistake #5: Ignoring lead times
(36:12) - When to use inventory planning software
(38:14) - Key takeaways and final thoughts

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