Platform guide — Operations, Inventory & Finance
Brands that manufacture — or assemble, or kit — carry a problem pure resellers don't: available-to-sell depends on components, production capacity and lead time, not just a warehouse count.
Katana addresses that specific shape of problem: production planning and inventory for makers, connected to the storefront.
Partner disclosure: Gapstow may receive referral compensation if you sign up or purchase through links on this page. This does not change what you pay or how we evaluate the platform.
What it does
Katana tracks raw materials, components and finished goods, plans and schedules production orders, and maintains real-time available-to-sell across sales channels including Shopify.
It also handles the make-to-order versus make-to-stock distinction, purchase orders and supplier lead times — the parts of the operation that spreadsheets model badly once SKU counts rise.
Notable capabilities
Component-level tracking so finished-goods availability reflects what can actually be built.
Stock levels reconciled across channels, which is the difference between a stockout and an oversell.
Different workflows for different product lines, without forcing everything into one model.
Supplier orders tied to demand, which is where most avoidable stockouts actually originate.
Where it fits
This is upstream of the storefront. When it's right, product availability on-site is accurate; when it's wrong, you oversell and the support queue finds out first.
Commonly touches
Judgment
When we’d look at it
When we’d question it
Before you implement
Which system is the source of truth for inventory — the store, the ERP, or this?
What is our definition of available-to-sell, and does it account for allocated and in-production stock?
Who performs receiving, counts and production updates, and on what cadence?
How does inventory reach the storefront, and how fast must that sync be during a promotion?
What happens when the sync fails — does the store keep selling, and against what number?
How do returns and damaged goods re-enter inventory?
Implementation
Inventory accuracy is an operating habit that software can support and cannot create. Before evaluating a system, spend a week finding out where the count actually goes wrong — it is almost never where people assume.
Vendor material
The software company publishes its own customer stories. We include one here because it’s a useful data point, clearly attributed and summarized rather than reproduced. It is not Gapstow work and we make no claim about the engagement.
Partner / vendor case study — published by Katana, not Gapstow work
Katana's own customer story describes leather goods manufacturer Paper Republic reporting a 60% improvement in production planning and a 29% increase in inventory accuracy after implementation. Gapstow was not involved in this engagement.
If Katana is on the table, the useful conversation is about the process and architecture around it — not the software itself.
