Stocking Suggestions for Card Shops: Velocity vs. Margin
Restock by days of supply, not units sold. A 3-step method for card shops to rank reorders by velocity, margin after fees and market price in every game.
Good stocking suggestions for a card shop rank what to reorder by how many days of supply you have left, not by how many units sold last month. Then they check two more things before anything goes on a buy list: your margin after marketplace fees, and which way the card's market price is moving. A "best sellers" report misses both. It tells you a sealed booster box flew off the shelf, but not that you still have nine on hand, or that the Lorcana singles you sold two of are now down to zero.
Last updated: October 2026
Everyone restocks what sells. That's the problem.
Every dealer already knows to buy more of what moves. It's the first rule anyone learns. But "what moves" hides the question that actually matters: how long will what you've got last?
A card that sold 20 copies last month sounds like a restock priority. If you have 40 in the binder, it isn't. You've got roughly two months of supply sitting there. Meanwhile a Yu-Gi-Oh! staple that sold only six copies, with one left, will be gone in about five days. A units-sold list puts the first card on top. A days-of-supply list puts the second one there, and the second one is the card that costs you a sale next weekend.
If you've ever run dry on a staple while a stack of something else sat in the case, that's why. It's the nuance that gets missed. Velocity on its own is a popularity contest. Velocity divided into what's on hand is a restock signal.
How to work out days of supply
The math is simple enough to run in a spreadsheet:
- Pick a window that matches how fast your stock turns. Thirty days is a common starting point for singles.
- Divide units sold in that window by the number of days to get average daily sales.
- Divide quantity on hand by average daily sales. That's your days of supply.
Here's a worked example with made-up numbers:
| Item | Sold (30 days) | On hand | Days of supply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magic staple, NM | 15 | 3 | 6 |
| Pokemon sealed ETB | 30 | 25 | 25 |
| One Piece leader card | 4 | 1 | 7.5 |
| Lorcana enchanted, LP | 1 | 2 | 60 |
The ETB sold twice as many units as anything else on the list and is the least urgent restock of the top three. Most people don't realize how often that happens until they line the numbers up side by side.
Two cautions. Count sales from every channel, including eBay, your own storefront and the table at card shows. If your show sales live in a separate notebook, your velocity is understated and you'll restock late. And treat a big show weekend as a spike, not a trend. One great Saturday can make a card look like it's flying when it's really just had a single good day.
Margin after fees changes the order
Fast and nearly sold out still doesn't mean "buy more." The next filter is what you actually make on it.
eBay and TCGplayer each take a double-digit percentage of a sale once commission and payment processing are both counted, and the exact rate depends on the category and the program you sell through. Shipping supplies and the time to pack an order come on top. So a $4 single with a $2.50 cost basis looks like a 37.5% margin on paper, and that margin shrinks fast once commission, processing and a sleeve, top loader and envelope come out of a marketplace sale.
Run margin after fees by channel. The same card can be worth restocking for your show table and your own storefront while being a poor buy for marketplace-only stock. Don't flatten that into one number.
Watch the market price before you reorder
The last check is direction. If a card's market price has been sliding for a month, restocking at today's buy price means you may be selling below it by the time copies arrive. If it's climbing, waiting a week can cost you. A 30-day trend is usually enough to catch the obvious cases. For the long view on a single card, a 90-day history helps.
This matters across every game, not just Pokemon. A Magic reprint, a new Yu-Gi-Oh! banlist or a fresh One Piece set can all change demand quickly.
Don't run one rule across every game
A shop carrying five games shouldn't use one reorder threshold for all of them. Sealed product and singles turn at different speeds. A competitive staple and a collector chase card behave nothing alike. If you set a single "reorder when below 10" rule, you'll overstock the slow lines and run dry on the fast ones.
The better approach is to set your days-of-supply target per game and per product type, then review it after every big release. It's more setup, but it's the difference between a reorder list you trust and one you ignore.
How InVelocity's Stocking Suggestions work
InVelocity is onboarding dealers by consultation right now, and its features are marked coming soon until the app reopens for self-serve use.
InVelocity's Stocking Suggestions feature makes restock recommendations based on three inputs: sales velocity, profit margins and market demand. Each suggestion carries one of three urgency labels: Need Now, Coming Soon or OK For Now. Need Now marks items that are sold out or down to three days of supply or less, and Coming Soon marks items that will run out within the restock lead time the dealer sets. That's the days-of-supply math above, applied to the whole inventory.
It sits next to the other side of the same problem. The Inventory Health Score rates inventory from 0 to 100 across four dimensions (sales velocity, pricing health, inventory age and capital efficiency) to surface slow movers and dead stock you shouldn't be reordering. Price Trend Indicators put one to three green or red chevrons next to a market price once it has moved 5% or more over 30 days, and Market Price Alerts list inventory cards whose TCGplayer market price moved 5% or more over a timeframe the dealer picks, skipping cards under $2.
Everything runs from one inventory record shared by eBay, Shopify, the dealer's own storefront and the point of sale used at card shows. If you're mapping out how those channels fit together, see the guides on how to create an online card shop and online card shop with inventory sync.
One honest limit, and it applies to any tool: a suggestion is only as good as the sales history behind it. A brand-new set has no history at all, so preorders and release-week buys are still your call. Treat the suggestions as a sorted to-do list, not a purchase order.
Frequently asked questions
What are stocking suggestions for a card shop?
They're restock recommendations that tell you which singles and sealed products to reorder and how urgently. Useful ones go beyond raw sales counts: they weigh how quickly each item sells against how many you have on hand, then factor in your margin after fees and the direction of the market price, so you reorder what's about to run out and still makes money.
How do I calculate days of supply for trading cards?
Divide units sold over a recent window, such as 30 days, by the number of days to get average daily sales. Then divide your quantity on hand by that figure. Three on hand and 15 sold in 30 days means 0.5 sales a day, or six days of supply. Include sales from every channel, including card shows.
Does InVelocity have stocking suggestions?
Yes. Its Stocking Suggestions feature makes restock recommendations from sales velocity, profit margins and market demand, labeled Need Now (sold out or three days of supply or less), Coming Soon (runs out within your restock lead time) or OK For Now. InVelocity is onboarding dealers by consultation right now, and its features are marked coming soon until the app reopens for self-serve use.
Should I restock a card that sells fast but has a thin margin?
Not automatically. Check what you actually keep after marketplace commission, payment processing and shipping costs on the channel where it sells. A card can be worth restocking for show-table or storefront sales and still be a poor buy for marketplace-only stock. Margin by channel, not one blended number, should decide it.
Want to see how stocking suggestions would map to your own inventory and games? Schedule a Consultation. For the broader picture of running a multi-channel store, see TCG shop owners and the store credit system for card shops guide.
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