An agent that owns replenishment planning, the job most small CPG teams run in a spreadsheet that one person understands and everyone fears. It’s the system I run live at oac, and the part that matters is the planning judgement baked into it: how much cover to hold, when a run-rate shift is real, when to pull an order forward. That comes from my years of planning at PepsiCo, set up around your business. You keep the judgement calls. The agent does the counting, the watching, and the chasing. The whole point is to set you up to run it yourself, with support there when you want it.
The problem
- You find out about a stockout after it's happened
- Run rates live in your head and a spreadsheet you don't trust
- Every order to your co-man is a panic the night before
- If you're off for a week, nobody can answer "do we need to order?"
What it does
- Demand run-rates per SKU, with overrides for promos and seasonality
- One live inventory position: on-hand, inbound, committed
- Replenishment planning: what to order, how much, by when, with lead times and MOQs built in
- Plans packaging and components alongside product
- Drafts the reorder email to your supplier for you to approve
- Runs what-if scenarios: price changes, promos, lead-time slips
- Out-of-stock flags and a short reorder digest you'll actually read
The install
- Three weeks, done with you
- Week 1: audit, clean and structure your data
- Week 2: build and calibrate the agent on your real history
- Week 3: go live, tune alerts, train your owner, hand over the runbook
- Then ongoing: monthly health checks and fixes as the business changes
Who it’s for
- CPG brands selling on Shopify, DTC and/or wholesale, usually working with a co-manufacturer or co-packer.
- Built for the spreadsheet stage: real stockout pain, no ERP, no dedicated planner yet. It runs in the Shopify and sheets you already have, with nothing to migrate to.
- If you’re on an ERP or MRP with a planning team, you’ve outgrown this. It’s for the stage before that hire.
- It plans what to reorder and when. Factory scheduling (line sequencing, changeovers, batch runs) is a different job and stays out of scope.
- It flags and recommends; a human signs off on every order.
What you need
- A Shopify store and a spreadsheet workspace you own. Open to other systems, we can talk it through on the call.
- A few months of order history is ideal (it can work with less).
- A named owner for the system, a couple of hours a week during the install.
- Shopify admin access (read) and basic supplier facts: lead times and MOQs.
FAQs
Is this software I'm buying?
No. It's built into accounts you own: your Shopify data, your spreadsheets, your AI tooling. Nothing of mine runs it and nothing I can switch off. The monthly fee buys my support.
What if my data is a mess?
Expected. Week one exists because everyone's data is a mess. Cleaning and structuring it is part of the install.
Will the agent place orders or contact my suppliers?
Not at the start. It drafts the reorder email for you to review and send, and a human approves every order. If down the line you want to give it more rope, we can expand it. It's designed to sit inside your process with human oversight.
Can my team maintain it, or do I need you forever?
You can maintain it. The handover includes a runbook and a training session, and it's built in tools your team already uses. Support is there for when the business changes or something upstream breaks.
How to start
The kit and installs open later this year.
Send me a line about your store and I'll come to you first when they open, with founding pricing for the first cohort.
Join the waitlistor email kat@kathutcheson.com
Want to work together before then? Advisory is open now.