StockSweep StockSweep | Help Center

Pre-Mortem Watchlist Explained

How StockSweep projects which currently-healthy SKUs are heading toward dead stock, what the risk score means, and why waiting has a cost.

Last updated: September 22, 2026

Contents
Show all sections (10) ▼

The Pre-Mortem Watchlist is forward-looking: it lists SKUs that are not dead stock yet but are trending toward your dead-stock threshold, so you can act before they cross it instead of after. Everything else in StockSweep — the Dead Stock table, Discounts & Actions, Automation — deals with stock that has already crossed that line. This is the one surface that deals with stock before it does.

Estimated time: 3 minutes

What you'll accomplish

  • Understand what "projected dead" means and where the projected date comes from
  • Know how the risk score is calculated and why it isn't just "dollars at risk"
  • Understand why recoverability drops the longer you wait, and why that's the reason this page exists
  • Know the plan requirement

Requirements

  • Plan: Pro or Enterprise (part of Demand Prediction).
  • Found at Analytics → Pre-Mortem.

What "projected to go dead" means

Each entry is a SKU whose recent sales trend, if it continues, would cross your account's dead-stock threshold within a projected window. The watchlist shows a projected date and a days-until-dead count for each one — this is a projection based on current trend, not a guarantee; a SKU can fall off the list just as easily as it appeared if its trend changes.

How the risk score is built

The risk score (0–100) that ranks the watchlist blends three inputs, not dollar value alone:

  • Dollars at risk — the inventory value tied up in the SKU, scaled so one very large SKU doesn't drown out everything else on the list.
  • Imminence — how soon it's projected to cross the threshold. A SKU projected to go dead in 10 days scores more urgently than one projected in 90, all else equal.
  • Recoverability — how much value is typically still recoverable at this stage, factored in so the score reflects "worth acting on now" rather than just "big number."

If a SKU is missing one of these inputs (for example, no cost on file yet), the score is calculated from whichever inputs are available rather than being suppressed — a cost-unknown SKU with an imminent, large-quantity risk still surfaces instead of silently sinking to the bottom of the list for a reason you can't see.

Why recoverability declines the longer you wait

The watchlist pairs its projection with a simple point: the earlier you catch a declining SKU, the more of its value is typically still recoverable through a normal discount — the longer it sits, the less a markdown tends to recover. That's the entire justification for a pre-mortem page instead of just waiting for the Dead Stock table to catch it: by the time something is dead stock, some of the easiest recovery window has already passed.

FAQ

Is a SKU on this list already discounted or flagged for automation?

No — Pre-Mortem is read-only information. Nothing here applies a discount or triggers a rule on its own; it's a heads-up for you to review and act on manually, or to build an automation rule condition around if you want it handled automatically going forward.

Why is "nothing projected to go dead" a normal result?

A catalog with generally healthy sell-through, or one that was recently reviewed, can legitimately have nothing trending toward the threshold. The page also shows an estimated benchmark curve so you can see what "normal" recoverability decay looks like even when your own watchlist is empty.

What's the difference between this and the Hold List?

They're inverses that share the same underlying demand-prediction engine. Pre-Mortem flags healthy stock trending toward dead. Hold List flags already-dead stock trending back toward healthy. See Hold List Explained.