Question 1

What is Inventory Alpha?

Accepted Answer

WooCommerce runs the side of your business your customers see. Inventory Alpha runs the side they don't. It's a WordPress plugin that adds the back office WooCommerce was never built to have: what your stock actually cost you, what each order really made after that cost, what's running low and what to reorder, who your best customers are, and a full record of every movement underneath it. Nothing moves out of WordPress. Same admin, same products, same orders. You just stop guessing at the numbers your store can't tell you.

Question 2

Who is Inventory Alpha for?

Accepted Answer

Any WooCommerce store where stock is a real part of the business. You buy it, you hold it, you sell it, you reorder it. It works the same whether you're one person doing all of that yourself or a team splitting it between the founder, whoever runs the warehouse, and whoever deals with suppliers. Size isn't what decides the fit. If you've ever had to open a spreadsheet to answer a question about your own stock, it's built for you.

Question 3

How is this different from WooCommerce's own stock management?

Accepted Answer

To WooCommerce, stock is a number. To you, stock is money sitting on a shelf. That is the whole difference. WooCommerce will tell you the number went down without ever telling you what the money did, because it holds no cost against anything. Inventory Alpha treats stock as what it actually is: money you have already spent, waiting to come back with a margin on it. So every unit carries what it cost, every order carries what it made, and the low-stock list tells you what to buy back.

Question 4

Does it replace WooCommerce?

Accepted Answer

No. You lose nothing you already have and gain everything WooCommerce leaves out. Your storefront, checkout, products, and orders all carry on untouched. Inventory Alpha works underneath them and runs the rest of the business. Costs, suppliers, and profit are only where it starts.

Question 5

I run my inventory in a spreadsheet. What actually changes?

Accepted Answer

A spreadsheet is a photograph of the business taken whenever you last had time. Inventory Alpha is the business, live. Sales draw stock down as they happen. Receiving a purchase order puts the goods in and the price you paid in with them, so cost is never something you go back and fill in later. Margins come from what each batch actually cost rather than a single average. Every movement leaves a dated record that nobody can quietly edit. The reorder list, the customer values, and the profit figures are all just current, all the time, without you maintaining any of it.

Question 6

Do I need to be technical to use it?

Accepted Answer

No. If you can run a WooCommerce store, you can run this. It looks and works like the rest of your WordPress admin, so there is nothing new to learn beyond where things are. Everything you do in it is the sort of thing you already do: adding a supplier, entering what something cost you, ordering more stock.

Question 7

Is there a demo I can look at first?

Accepted Answer

The 30-day free trial is the demo, and it is a better one. It runs on your own store rather than a sample one, so what you are judging is your stock, your suppliers, and your own margins, not somebody else's placeholder data.

Question 8

How do I install Inventory Alpha?

Accepted Answer

Exactly like any other plugin, with one difference at the start. Inventory Alpha is not on the WordPress plugin directory, so you download the file from your account here rather than searching for it inside WordPress. After that it is the route you already know: Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin, choose the file, activate, and enter your licence key.

Question 9

How long does setup take?

Accepted Answer

A few minutes to install, then it depends how much you want out of it. The minimum is a cost against each product, since every profit figure is built on it. To get the reordering working you add a minimum and maximum level, a run rate, and the suppliers for each product. That sounds like a lot and it is not, because it is one bulk-edit screen, and the maximum can be filled in from your own sales history.

Question 10

Will my existing products, orders, and customers show up?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and so does your history. Every product, every customer, and every order you have ever taken is there as soon as it activates, because Inventory Alpha reads your existing store rather than importing from it. A lot of systems start you at zero and build up from the day you install. This one starts full.

Question 11

Do orders placed before I installed get profit figures?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The moment a product has a cost, every order it has ever appeared in gets its margin worked out, right back through your history. Which means you can ask what last Christmas really made you, or which products have been quietly losing money for a year, and get a genuine answer instead of an estimate.

Question 12

Can I import my existing data from a spreadsheet?

Accepted Answer

You import the half WooCommerce does not already have. Your quantities are in WooCommerce and get read straight from there, so there is nothing to bring across. What comes in by CSV is everything else: which supplier sells each product, what they charge you, and the tax rate, matched to your own SKUs.

Question 13

What's the quickest route to my first purchase order?

Accepted Answer

Add the supplier, link its products with their costs, one at a time or in bulk by CSV, then raise the order from Purchase Orders. The low-stock picker shows everything below its minimum, so the order is built from what genuinely needs reordering, and it goes out to the supplier by email as a branded document.

Question 14

What are the requirements?

Accepted Answer

WordPress 5.8 or later, WooCommerce 5.0 or later, and PHP 7.4 or later. There's no external service to connect and nothing to install outside WordPress.

Question 15

Does it work with HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage)?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and you do not have to choose. Inventory Alpha reads your orders from wherever WooCommerce is keeping them, so it works the same with HPOS on or off, and you can switch HPOS on later without anything here needing to change.

Question 16

Will it slow my site down or affect my theme?

Accepted Answer

Neither, because none of it runs where your customers are. Everything Inventory Alpha does happens behind the login, on the admin side, so your storefront loads exactly as it does today and your theme has nothing to style or collide with.

Question 17

Is it available in languages other than English?

Accepted Answer

English only at the moment. The plugin is built so it can be translated, but no other languages ship with it yet.

Question 18

How much does Inventory Alpha cost?

Accepted Answer

£50 a month, or £510 a year, which works out at £42.50 a month and saves you 15%. There is one plan and it contains everything, with unlimited products, orders, suppliers, and team members. No setup fee, no per-user charge, and no cheaper tier with the useful parts taken out.

Question 19

Is there a free trial, and do I need a card?

Accepted Answer

Yes, 30 days, everything unlocked. The card is asked for at the start so nothing has to happen at the end: keep it and it simply carries on, cancel and you are never charged. Payment runs through Stripe, so your card details never touch this site. One trial per customer.

Question 20

What happens when the trial ends?

Accepted Answer

It becomes a paid subscription on day 31, and the card you started with is charged £50, or £510 if you chose annual. You get an email three days before that happens, so it never arrives as a surprise. Cancel any time before day 31 and you pay nothing.

Question 21

Can I cancel any time?

Accepted Answer

Yes, from your account dashboard, whenever you like. No contract and no cancellation fee, and your licence runs to the end of the period you have paid for.

Question 22

What happens if I cancel?

Accepted Answer

Your store keeps trading and your data stays yours. Inventory Alpha becomes read-only, so you can open everything and read everything, you just cannot write to it. Nothing is deleted, nothing is locked away, and it picks up where it left off if you subscribe again.

Question 23

Do you offer refunds?

Accepted Answer

Get in touch within 14 days of paying and explain what went wrong. Every request is decided and answered individually.

Question 24

Are prices in pounds, and is there VAT on top?

Accepted Answer

All prices are in GBP, and nothing is added at checkout. The £50 or £510 you see is the full amount charged. Every invoice sits in your account dashboard to download whenever you need one.

Question 25

Does one licence cover more than one store?

Accepted Answer

No. One licence, one site. If you run a second store, it needs a licence of its own.

Question 26

How do I move my licence to a new site?

Accepted Answer

From the Subscription tab in your account dashboard. Your Active Installs are listed there, each with a Release seat button. Release the old site first, then activate on the new one, and the move is done without a support ticket.

Question 27

I run several stores. Is there a discount?

Accepted Answer

Get in touch at support@inventoryalpha.com with how many stores you are running. Multi-store pricing is handled case by case, so it depends on the number and the setup.

Frequently Asked Questions

General

Installing & Getting Started

Compatibility & Requirements

Pricing, Trial & Billing

Licence & Sites

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