In the books, stock sits at its purchase cost and looks like an asset. When it has not sold for months, though, it locks up cash you cannot put into goods that do sell or into marketing. It also takes space and work, and each month raises the risk that it will no longer sell at the original price. The answer to the question in the title therefore does not come from total stock value, but from splitting it by how long each group has gone without a sale.
Why slow stock costs more than the balance sheet shows
The cost of holding inventory includes storage space, insurance, obsolescence and spoilage, and the opportunity cost of the money invested in it. The last item is usually the least visible in an online store: no one sends an invoice for it, yet it is cash that could have repaid a working-capital loan or bought goods that turn faster.
What that amounts to as an annual percentage cannot be copied from a table. A case study of ten companies showed that the holding cost rate depends, among other things, on the storage system a company uses, and needs to be measured for the specific setting. For an online store this means adding up its own components: the cost of money (the interest on a working-capital loan, or the return you forgo), warehouse rent and labour, and an estimate of how quickly this type of goods loses value.
Accounting rules also make the point that purchase cost is not a promise of future revenue. The Czech Accounting Act requires businesses, when valuing assets at the balance-sheet date, to take into account foreseeable risks, possible losses and all reductions in value. Temporary reductions are recorded through valuation allowances. Old stock is therefore a topic for a conversation with your accountant, not only for marketing.
Research also suggests that tied-up cash is more than an accounting detail. Across more than a thousand large Belgian firms, higher profitability went together with fewer days of inventory and receivables. That is a correlation from large companies in the 1990s, not proof that cutting stock will lift profit by itself. It is reason enough not to treat slow stock as neutral.
Measure cash by age, not with one average
The textbook days-in-inventory ratio shows how many days it takes to sell the average stock. It is useful for the warehouse as a whole but not for this decision: fast-moving strong items hide a group of goods that has not sold for a year. You need two numbers for each item: value at purchase cost (units × purchase price excluding VAT) and days since the last sale.
In Shoptet, the stock overview shows total purchase value as the sum of item purchase prices and offers filters including last sale date and margin; the overview is available with the Warehouse Management add-on. Watch for two traps. Product bundles are included in total value even though they are already counted as the products they are made of, so they inflate the figure. And both margin and value depend on a purchase price being recorded. Do not fill missing prices with estimates; set those items aside and state what share of stock units has no price.
Then split stock into age bands. An illustrative example with invented numbers:
| Days since last sale | Value at purchase cost | Share |
|---|---|---|
| up to 90 days | CZK 1,560,000 | 65% |
| 91–180 days | CZK 360,000 | 15% |
| 181–365 days | CZK 288,000 | 12% |
| over 365 days or never sold | CZK 192,000 | 8% |
| Total | CZK 2,400,000 | 100% |
Goods that have not sold for over six months hold CZK 480,000 here, a fifth of the warehouse. If the store financed stock with a working-capital loan and used a working rate of 7% a year, tying up that money alone would cost around CZK 33,600 a year, before storage, labour and loss of value. Use your own rate; the point is to put a price on slow stock, not to find an exact number.
For items older than 180 days, rank groups (categories, brands, suppliers) by cash tied up. The ten largest are usually enough for a first round of decisions.
Compare within a category and against margin
Slowness is not uniform across an assortment. A large analysis of US retailers found that inventory turnover is negatively correlated with gross margin: higher-margin goods tend to sell more slowly. A premium accessory with a high margin is therefore not a problem just because it turns more slowly than consumables. Compare items with similar items and read days without a sale next to margin. The real problem is slow stock whose margin cannot justify the time it is held.
Stock, sales and margin in one place
Korzaro connects your store data so you can see where the cash sits and what sells.
Is demand missing, or is it just the wrong time?
The rate of sale depends on price, season and the rest of the assortment available to the customer. Before labelling a group unsellable, work through four common explanations:
- Season. Compare sales with the same period last year. Goods that sell mainly in one season can sit outside it and still be fine.
- Unavailability or invisibility. The item may have been hidden, dropped from a category or product feed, or missing the size or variant customers wanted.
- Price. If purchase or competitor prices changed, the customer may find the same product cheaper elsewhere.
- Genuinely missing demand. The goods were visible, available, fairly priced and in season for a long time – and still did not sell.
Only the last case is a reason to stop believing the goods will sell at their normal price. In the first three, the right response is to fix the cause and give the item a limited time.
Three deliberate decisions instead of waiting
The most expensive option is often no decision at all: the stock sits, no one owns it, and a year later it is a year older. Give each large group one of three steps.
Hold with a review date
This makes sense for seasonal goods ahead of their season, for an item with proven demand after its visibility is fixed, or for high-margin goods with a low risk of becoming obsolete. Write down a date and a condition, for example “by the end of September we sell at least a third of the units, otherwise we sell through”.
Actively sell through
Selling through does not automatically mean a blanket discount. It can mean better placement, a bundle with a fast-selling product, a targeted offer to customers who bought similar goods, or a return to the supplier. When a discount is warranted, set its depth by margin and the remaining season. A field experiment in Zara stores showed that a systematic markdown process built on demand forecasting increased clearance revenue by about 6%. This is a large fashion chain, so do not carry the number over; what does transfer is the principle of deciding from data rather than instinct.
When you announce a discount in Czechia, its size is calculated from the lowest price in the 30 days before the discount, and this applies to online stores too.
An illustrative comparison: goods worth CZK 50,000 at purchase cost would sell for CZK 75,000 excluding VAT at full price, but at the current pace over two years. With a 20% discount you sell them now for CZK 60,000, and the margin falls from CZK 25,000 to CZK 10,000. At a working rate of 7%, two years of holding cost about CZK 7,000 in money alone, so holding comes out ahead only if you genuinely trust the pace estimate and if storage, labour and the risk that part of the stock never sells cost less than the remaining CZK 8,000. What decides it, above all, is whether the demand really exists.
Stop buying
This decision concerns future money, not the current stock. If demand is missing or the margin cannot justify the holding time, remove the item from future orders even if you keep offering the current units for a while.
Disposal is not always a free option either. From 19 July 2026, an EU regulation prohibits destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear; discarding goods as waste for recycling also counts as destruction, unlike handing them on for reuse. The ban does not apply to micro and small enterprises, and applies to medium-sized ones only from 19 July 2030. Most Czech online stores are therefore not affected yet, but it shows that writing goods off and throwing them away is becoming a less obvious end point.
What to do now
- Export stock with purchase price and last sale date. Exclude bundles so value is not counted twice, and record the share of items without a purchase price.
- Split value into four age bands. Up to 90, 91–180, 181–365 and over 365 days since the last sale.
- Rank groups older than 180 days by cash tied up and take the top ten.
- Record the reason each one is slow: season, visibility and availability, price, or missing demand.
- Assign one decision with a date: hold until a date, sell through in a defined way, or stop buying. Talk to your accountant about how old stock is valued.