How product lifecycle works

Every product sits in exactly one lifecycle state. The state tells SKU.io what to do with the product at that stage of its life: whether to plan it, reorder it, backorder it, publish it, and how much of it to show on your channels. You don't have to change it until a product starts to wind down, so a new product is always Active and behaves the way products always have.

This page explains the model. To act on it, see Discontinue a product or Phase out with a final buy.

The states

SKU.io comes with three built-in states, and you can add your own.

State	Use it when	What it means in practice
Active	The product is a normal, ongoing line	Everything works as usual. Every new product starts here, and so does every product in an account that has never used lifecycle states.
Phasing out	You've decided to stop, but want a last order first	Planning only buys enough to cover demand up to the Discontinue on date, and purchase orders after the Last order date get a warning. On the discontinue date the product becomes Discontinued by itself.
Discontinued	You'll never buy or make it again	SKU.io stops planning and suggesting reorders, blocks new backorders, and sells through only the stock you actually hold. The product stays visible and sellable until it runs out.
A state you create	You need another stage, such as a quality hold or a seasonal pause	It starts with a copy of another state's rules, which you then change. It can send products back to another state automatically after a number of days.

You create states and change their rules on the States tab of Settings → Products → Product Lifecycle. See Customize lifecycle states. Each product shows its state as a chip on its page and in the Lifecycle column of the products list. A matrix product whose variants sit in different states shows a Partly chip, such as "Partly discontinued · 2 of 5". The Lifecycle states reference lists every chip and reason.

How a product moves between states

You change a product's state from Change lifecycle… in its Actions menu, or with the Phase out…, Discontinue… and Reactivate shortcuts. A change can apply now or On a date. The diagram shows the usual paths. Change lifecycle… can also move a product from any state straight to any other.

• Phasing out → Discontinued happens on its own on the Discontinue on date. See Phase out with a final buy.
• Scheduled changes apply within the hour on their date. See Schedule lifecycle changes.
• A state you create can return products automatically after a set number of days, to Active or another state. It can't return them to Phasing out, because that needs a reason and a discontinue date.
• Reactivate brings a product back to Active, and you can Undo the latest change for 24 hours. See Reactivate a product or undo a change.
• Suggestions tell you when a product looks ready for a different state. They never change a state by themselves. See Review lifecycle suggestions.

Every change is recorded in the product's lifecycle history, with who or what made it: such as a change by hand, a bulk change, an import, a schedule, a sell-out, or an accepted suggestion.

What a state controls

Each state has one value for each business process, set in the policy matrix on the States tab. When you change a cell, the new value applies to every product in that state. Here are the defaults for the built-in states:

Process	Active	Phasing out	Discontinued
Demand planning, reorder suggestions and MRP	Enabled	Capped to discontinue date	Excluded
Low-stock alerts	Enabled	Enabled	Off
Purchase orders, work orders and send planning	Enabled	Enabled (purchase orders warn after the last order date)	Enabled with warning
Using it as a new component	Enabled	Enabled with warning	Enabled with warning
New backorders	Enabled	Enabled	Blocked
B2B portal	Visible	Visible	Visible while in stock
Channel quantity	Normal	Normal	Sell-through (never above real stock)
Drop-ship supplier stock	Enabled	Enabled	Excluded
When it sells out	Do nothing	Do nothing	Use the sell-out setting

Every row, value and default is listed in the Lifecycle policy matrix reference.

What a state never blocks

Stock transfers and inventory adjustments are always allowed in every state, because moving stock to where it sells is part of selling through. Channel and EDI order imports never fail because of a state. A line that would backorder a blocked product is flagged on the order instead.

Discontinued or archived?

These two do different jobs.

• Discontinued keeps the product visible and sellable. SKU.io stops planning and reordering it, blocks new backorders, and sells what's left.
• Archived hides the product everywhere. It's the last step, once there's nothing left to sell. See Archive, unarchive & delete a product.

SKU.io archives a discontinued product by itself only if your sell-out action is End its listings and archive the product, and only once every listing has reached its end state. If stock is received for it later, it's unarchived and goes back to Discontinued, never to Active. See What happens when a discontinued product sells out.

A product you archive by hand is left alone by sell-out. If it still has a scheduled lifecycle change, that change is cancelled when its date arrives. Units on a stock hold still count as on hand, so a product never sells out while stock is held.

"Discontinued by a supplier" isn't the product's state

On a supplier's inventory list you can mark a product as discontinued by that supplier. That flag is sourcing information for that one supplier, and it never changes the product's lifecycle state. Flags you set before you started using lifecycle states don't move any products into a state, either.

When a supplier has discontinued a product:

• Demand planning, MRP and backorder supplier assignment move to the next supplier on the product.
• If every supplier has discontinued it, the planning line says All supplier sources discontinued, and SKU.io raises a lifecycle suggestion so you can decide whether to discontinue the product.
• A new purchase order line for that supplier shows a warning such as "Acme Supplies marked this product discontinued." Lines already on a purchase order aren't warned.

See Track supplier inventory for where you set the flag.

How the state shows up across SKU.io

You don't have to visit each area. The state follows the product everywhere.

Planning and automatic purchase orders

• Products whose state excludes demand planning are left out of a plan. A note under the results counts them by state, such as "3 products excluded (Discontinued)". Click Show to list them read-only, marked as never ordered.
• A Phasing out product's line plans only the demand up to its discontinue date. It rounds down to whole case packs, never forces a supplier's minimum order quantity, and carries a Final buy chip.
• A successor's line can show Inherited history, when it uses the old product's sales history, and Use-up, when the old product's remaining stock is counted against what the successor needs.
• Lines that come from a discontinued supplier are planned at zero.
• Scheduled forecasts and automatic purchase orders never buy a product whose state excludes planning or blocks purchase orders. They also skip a phasing-out product once its last order date has passed. Where a plan explains a skipped product, it says "Its lifecycle state stops automatic purchase orders".

See Forecast and replenish stock.

The B2B portal

What portal buyers see follows the state's B2B portal setting. An in-stock discontinued product shows a Last units badge, and a phasing-out product shows Ending soon. If the product has a successor that the buyer can see in their catalog, the card names it. A blocked backorder overrides the portal's own backorder setting. Carts and reorders are checked again at checkout, and a sold-out discontinued line is dropped with a message such as "Sold out. This item is no longer restocked." A back-in-stock bell can still show on a visible card that can't be backordered.

See Restrict what buyers see with catalogs.

Substitutions

When you link a successor and set Auto-substitute to When out of stock or Always, SKU.io creates a replacement substitution rule from the old product to the new one, with the note "Created by lifecycle succession". If a rule for that pair already exists, it's reused. Setting Auto-substitute to Off, or removing the link, deletes only the rule SKU.io created. Rules you made by hand are never changed. On the Substitutions page, you can tell these rules apart by their note. See Link a successor product and Substitute products on sales orders.

Brand reports

A core product whose state excludes demand planning is marked DISCO on the next brand report, with the reason Discontinued. What counts is the Demand planning setting, not the state's name, so a state you create with planning excluded counts too. The older signal, 30 days with inactive listings, now shows the reason Listings inactive. See Choose core products.

Inventory aging

For aged stock of a product whose state excludes planning, the aging report suggests Add to clearance plan instead of selling it on more channels. See Find and clear aged inventory and Create a clearance plan.

Reports

Inventory aging, inventory planning, product analytics and low-stock items show each product's state in a Lifecycle column, and you can filter them by state. Inventory valuation can also group by Lifecycle.

Product seasons aren't merchandise seasons

SKU.io uses "season" in two places, and the two aren't linked.

• A Product season, such as SS26, is a selling window that products belong to. You set them up under Settings → Products → Product seasons and use them for carryover and the end-of-season wizard. See Set up seasons and carryover.
• A Merchandise season, under Inventory → Merchandise Planning, is a budget period for open-to-buy. See How open-to-buy works.

The same code, such as SS26, can exist in both lists without affecting the other.

Next steps

• Set up the rules first: Customize lifecycle states.
• Discontinue your first product: Discontinue a product.
• Look up terms such as final buy, sell-out and successor in the Glossary.