Signs that spreadsheets are hurting your e-commerce business

Every e-commerce business starts with spreadsheets. They're free, flexible, and familiar. For your first few orders per day, a simple sheet tracking stock levels works fine.

Then you add a second sales channel. Then a third. Orders increase. Variants multiply. And somewhere along the way, that trusty spreadsheet becomes the thing holding your business back.

The warning signs

You've oversold because a sheet wasn't updated. A customer ordered on bol.com while you were updating stock in your Amazon sheet. Now you're cancelling an order, apologizing, and hoping your seller metrics don't tank.

Stock counts never quite match reality. You do a warehouse count and find 47 units. Your spreadsheet says 52. Where did those 5 go? Nobody knows. You adjust the number and move on, knowing it'll drift again.

Channel updates eat your mornings. Every day starts with the same ritual: check overnight sales, update the master sheet, then manually adjust stock on each platform. That's an hour gone before you've done anything productive.

You're afraid to go on holiday. Because who else understands your spreadsheet system? The formulas, the hidden columns, the manual steps that have to happen in the right order—it's all in your head.

Mistakes are getting expensive. A picking error here, a wrong variant there. Each one costs time, refund fees, and return shipping. Small margins get smaller.

Why spreadsheets break at scale

Spreadsheets aren't the problem. Using them for something they weren't designed for is.

A spreadsheet can't sync your stock to Amazon in real-time. It can't automatically reduce inventory when an order comes in on Shopify. It doesn't know that the same product exists on three different platforms under three different names.

When you sell on multiple channels, you need something that connects them. Spreadsheets are isolated. Every update is manual, and manual means slow, error-prone, and dependent on you remembering to do it.

The real cost

It's not just the errors. It's the time.

Hours spent on admin are hours not spent on sourcing better products, improving margins, or finding new customers. The spreadsheet keeps you busy, but busy isn't the same as growing.

When to make the switch

If you recognized yourself in those warning signs, you already know the answer. The best time to move to proper inventory software was before things got complicated. The second best time is now—before the next oversell, the next stock mismatch, the next morning lost to manual updates.

Stockpilot connects your sales channels and keeps inventory synced automatically. No more copy-pasting between sheets. No more hoping you remembered to update everything. Just one place where stock levels stay accurate across Amazon, bol.com, Shopify, and wherever else you sell.