Dead Stock Identifier

Purpose

Identify WooCommerce products that have had no sales in a configurable lookback window but still carry positive stock. These dead-stock items tie up capital and warehouse space. The report exports a prioritized list by inventory value (stock × price) to help prioritize clearance action. Read-only — no products are modified.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read scope
• Minimum WooCommerce version: 3.5.0

Parameters

Authentication

WooCommerce uses OAuth 1.0a for HTTP and Basic Auth over HTTPS.

For HTTPS stores (recommended):

Authorization: Basic base64(consumer_key:consumer_secret)

For HTTP stores (development only): Use OAuth 1.0a — include oauth_consumer_key, oauth_nonce, oauth_signature, oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1, oauth_timestamp, oauth_version=1.0

Never log or output consumer_key or consumer_secret values.

See docs/AUTHENTICATION.md for full setup instructions.

Safety

Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Fetch all published products with stock

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products?status=publish&stock_status=instock&per_page=100&page=1

Build a set of all product IDs with stock > 0.

Step 2 — Fetch products sold in the lookback window

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/orders
  ?status=completed&after=<now - lookback_days>&per_page=100&page=1

Extract all product_id values from line_items. Build a set of "sold product IDs."

Step 3 — Compute dead stock

Dead stock = products in Step 1 set that are NOT in the Step 2 sold set.

Step 4 — Compute inventory value and sort

For each dead-stock product: inventory_value = stock_quantity × regular_price Sort descending by inventory_value.

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products           — all in-stock products
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders             — completed orders in lookback window
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/reports/top_sellers — supplementary sales data

Pagination Strategy

WooCommerce REST API uses page/per_page pagination (not cursor-based).

Standard pattern:

page = 1
while True:
  response = GET /endpoint?per_page=100&page=page
  process(response)
  if len(response) < 100: break
  page += 1

Maximum per_page is 100 for most endpoints. The X-WP-Total and X-WP-TotalPages response headers report totals. Always read X-WP-TotalPages on the first request to estimate job size.

Session Tracking

Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.

STARTUP:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: woo-dead-stock-identifier        ║
║  STORE: <store_url>                      ║
║  TIME:  <ISO-8601 UTC>                   ║
║  MODE:  READ-ONLY                        ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

PER-OPERATION (emit after each API call batch):

[N/TOTAL] <METHOD> <endpoint> → <result_count> records | params: <key>=<val>

COMPLETION (human format):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  COMPLETE: woo-dead-stock-identifier     ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename>                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-dead-stock-identifier",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path>",
  "dry_run": false
}

Output Format

CSV filename: woo-dead-stock-identifier_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: product_id, sku, name, category, stock_quantity, regular_price, inventory_value, days_since_last_sale, date_created

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Use lookback_days: 90 as a starting point; seasonal products may need 180 or 365.
• Sort the export by inventory_value descending to prioritize high-capital items first.
• Follow up with woo-bulk-price-adjustment to apply clearance discounts to identified items.
• For seasonal catalogs: run before and after the selling season to catch unsold inventory.