Best software to track inventory across multiple retail locations?

Question

We've run a boutique in Austin for about six years now and just opened our second location across town. Up until now, a basic Shopify plus Square setup worked fine for us since we only had one warehouse space to worry about. But now we are splitting stock between the two stores and also selling online, and it is getting messy fast. I thought we could just use Shopify's native multi-location tracking, but the sync delay is causing ghost inventory issues where someone buys the last item online that actually sold in store ten minutes earlier.

So I was thinking we need a dedicated inventory management system (IMS) that sits in the middle. My logic was that something like Cin7 or maybe Katana would handle this, but they seem geared more towards manufacturing. We have a budget of around $150 a month and really need to get this sorted before the holiday rush starts in November. I want something that handles real-time stock transfers between store A and store B without making my staff jump through ten hoops. What are you guys using for multi-site retail that doesn't lag?

ThunderBolt88 · Accepted Answer

@Reply #1 - good point! Cin7's going to blow past that $150 budget anyway. I would suggest looking at Trunk.io instead. It does real-time stock syncing and is way cheaper. Just be careful with Shopify API rate limits during peak hours. If you need to free up cash for the subscription, using a price drop tool for your store supplies can help offset the cost.

quofzxnfhn · Answer

Honestly, we went down this exact road last year and it was a total nightmare. Shopify's native multi-location setup is unfortunately not as good as expected, and the sync lag almost ruined our holiday season. Here is what you need to avoid:

Skip Cin7. It is way too bloated for a two-store boutique and setup is a headache.

Stay away from cheap sync apps. Most claim real-time but actually run on 15-minute intervals, which does not solve your ghost inventory issue.

Do not keep Square and Shopify running independently without a master database. They will constantly overwrite each other. We ended up switching to Trunk. It actually syncs in real-time (seconds, not minutes) and handles store-to-store transfers without the lag. It fits right around your budget and actually works.

gywhjixzsg · Answer

^ This. Also, while Trunk is okay for basic syncing, we unfortunately had a pretty rough time with it when doing actual physical store-to-store transfers. It just did not track the in-transit status, so stock would vanish for a day. Not as good as expected for retail. Instead, we ended up switching to Finale Inventory. It fits right around that $150 budget and actually handles multi-location transfers properly:

You can create official transfer orders so staff know what is in transit.

The sync to Shopify is near real-time, which cut down our ghost sales.

It handles the Square integration much better than Trunk did for us. Just watch their tiers because prices jump if your order volume spikes. I actually used a free price tracker to monitor SaaS discount cycles before we locked in our annual plan.