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Put the Stock Back in Out-of-Stocks

February 15, 2023

The movement of goods is the ultimate goal for any retailer. But what happens when a retailer is unable to move goods into the consumers’ hands because of out-of-stock issues? 

According to Jacqueline Renfrow at fierceretail.com, over 75% of adults found a wanted product to be out-of-stock during store visits over the last 12 months. In the same period of time, 63% of online shoppers experienced the same out-of-stock error messages. Retailers lost 58% of these sales and 65% of the online sales. 

New research from IHL Group estimated nearly $1 trillion loss in sales due to out-of-stocks. And that shoppers face out-of-stocks as often as one in three trips to brick-and-mortar stores.  

Many factors can lead to embarrassing and costly out-of-stock scenarios for retailers, such as: 

  • Underestimating the demand for a product 
  • Miscalculating the time needed for the supplier to deliver the product 
  • Late delivery by a supplier 
  • Product quality issues 
  • Shortage of working capital 

Those who have been in business long enough know that some situations cannot be controlled. But what can be controlled, should be controlled. Inventory visibility is something retailers can control with confidence. 

RFID technology allows retailers to gain complete visibility of their inventory in real time. CONTROLSPAN, CONTROLTEK’s RFID management software for inventory control and asset tracking, enables retailers to take complete control of their inventory across their entire enterprise.  

CONTROLSPAN is revolutionizing the way businesses utilize and benefit from Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. With its user-friendly platform, organizations can access a host of features that streamline their operations for maximum efficiency and profitability. Through seamless integration with existing systems and processes, users are able to efficiently transition into data-driven decision making without any downtime on their business. 

The Proctor & Gamble Company sponsored a study, A Comprehensive Guide to Retail Out-of-Stock Reduction in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Industry, which discovered RFID showed great promise to solving the out-of-stock epidemic. The report states that “new retail support technologies, such as RFID, have changed our thinking about OOS as a single problem, to separating OOS examination to ‘not in the store’ and ‘not on the shelf’, which is key to truly understanding the out-of-stock epidemic. 

Request a demo today and see how CONTROLTEK’s ControlSpan suite offers end-to-end inventory and process management solutions that allows not only improved visibility but also enhanced profitability and customized integration. CONTROLTEK’s solutions help make existing systems more efficient and accurate. 

As any retailer would agree, inventory visibility is the cornerstone to meeting product demands and protecting the trust consumers place in the company brand.