Use Google Sheets to Create a Restocking Priority List

What This Does

Turns your weekly sales data into a ranked priority list for your stocking crew — so the most important items get filled first and high-velocity products never go empty during peak hours.

Before You Start

• You have a Google account (free)
• You have access to your weekly item sales data (even rough estimates work)
• Google Sheets is open in a browser

Steps

1. Set up your item tracking table

Create a new Google Sheets with these columns: Item Name | Avg Weekly Units Sold | Current Stock (cases) | Days of Supply | Priority.

2. Fill in your top items

Enter your 20–30 top-selling items. For Days of Supply, type the formula: =B2/C2*7 (weekly sales ÷ cases on hand × 7 days). This tells you how many days until you run out.

3. Sort by Days of Supply

Click the Days of Supply column header → Data → Sort sheet by column, A → Z. Items with the fewest days of supply rise to the top — those are your stocking priorities.

4. Use Gemini to generate a staff briefing

Select your completed table. In the Gemini panel (or Explore), type: "Which items should my stocking crew prioritize today? Write a short 5-item priority list with reasoning."

5. Share or print for your crew

Screenshot or copy the top priorities and share via group text or post it in the back room at the start of each shift.

Real Example

Scenario: Monday morning, you have 3 part-time stockers arriving at 10am. You need to tell them what to prioritize in the next 4 hours.

What Gemini generates: "1. Strawberries — 0.8 days of supply, likely to empty by this afternoon. 2. Bagged salads — 1.1 days, high weekend demand. 3. Bananas — 1.4 days, DSD delivery not until Wednesday..."

What you do: Read this list at the 10am briefing. Crew knows exactly what to pull first.

Tips

• Update the "Current Stock" column once per day — takes 5 minutes and makes the whole sheet useful
• Once built, this sheet runs itself; the formulas do the prioritization math automatically
• Even without Gemini, sorting by Days of Supply is sufficient — the AI just makes the briefing faster to communicate

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/star options in the toolbar or right-click menu.