How much revenue do we lose to stockouts?

MetricSales lost to stockouts

Unit% of potential sales forgone, net of in-store substitution

Line of estimated lost revenue (out-of-stock instances times average velocity) as percent of revenue. Pull out-of-stock SKU-days and multiply by typical pricing. Above 3% means meaningful revenue left on the table. Example: 3.2% lost sales rate = $480K Q4 missed revenue.

SKU

Stock keeping unit. One distinct sellable variant. Counted at the variant level, not the product level.

Grocery and mass merchandise physical retail, lost sales measured as forgone revenue net of substitution within the same store, global with US and European anchors, 2021 to 2025 data with a 2002 foundational study · The single biggest error on this card is confusing the out-of-stock rate with the lost sales rate. They are different numbers by a factor of roughly two. The OOS rate counts items missing from the shelf and sits near 8.3% globally and 8.6% in Europe. The lost sales rate counts revenue actually forgone after shoppers substitute, and Corsten and Gruen put that closer to 4% of sales, because roughly 31% of shoppers buy the item elsewhere and 9% abandon the purchase while the rest substitute in the same store. Use OOS to diagnose execution and lost sales to size the prize, and never present one labelled as the other. Note also that substitution protects the retailer but not the brand, so a supplier reading this chart sees a much larger loss than the retailer does. The 8.3% global figure rests on the Gruen, Corsten and Bharadwaj study, which is a 2002 dataset and is being carried forward in 2026 references because nothing of comparable scale has replaced it. Flag that age wherever the figure is used. Promotional lines run roughly double the base rate, so a chart without promo periods marked will read as noise.

The lost sales line spikes on exactly the weeks the promotional calendar fires, so the business is systematically running out of the products it has just spent marketing money driving demand for.

Base weeks running 3.1% lost sales, promo weeks at 9.4%, with the promoted lines accounting for two thirds of the total loss in those weeks. The promotion is funding a stockout.

• Size promotional uplift into the replenishment plan rather than the marketing plan, since promoted items go out of stock at roughly twice the rate of non-promoted lines and grocery OSA drops from 92 to 95% down to 85 to 90% during promo periods (Pygmalios citing ECR, Vision Group Retail).
• Measure availability at the shelf rather than in the system, because the two diverge and the gap is where the losses sit. A large share of out-of-stock loss is stock present in the building but not on the shelf, which inventory reports cannot see and which IHL attributes alongside product location failures worth $145.2 billion globally (IHL Group).
• Set the internal target at 98% OSA with 95% as the review trigger, matching what large grocery and mass merchandise operators run, and escalate any line sitting below 95% for two consecutive periods into a supply chain review rather than a store conversation (FieldPie, Pazo).
• Quantify the loss in currency before funding a fix, using the retailer-level rule of about 4% of sales, which is roughly $40 million a year for a billion-dollar retailer. That figure is usually large enough to fund the measurement infrastructure on its own (Pygmalios citing Corsten and Gruen).

1. IHL GroupFixing Inventory Distortion: Who's Winning, Who's Failing, What's Working · 2025 · worldwide retail operations across four regions and ten retail segments, tracked for eight consecutive years via the Sophia database, nearly twenty years of series history Global inventory distortion reached $1.73 to $1.77 trillion in 2025, equal to 6.5% of global retail sales, split into roughly $1.157 trillion of out-of-stocks and $572 billion of overstocks. Empty shelves alone account for $690.9 billion, customer service inadequacies $165.6 billion, product location failures $145.2 billion and price or offer mismatches $77.4 billion. ihlservices.com ↗
2. IHL Group via EIN PresswireRetail Inventory Crisis Persists Despite $172 Billion in Improvements · 2025 · worldwide retail operations, regional breakdown Asia-Pacific leads global losses at $642 billion or 37% of worldwide distortion with a 19.1% improvement trajectory, EMEA achieved the strongest improvement at 31.1% since 2020, and North America accounts for $415 billion. einnews.com ↗
3. NielsenIQNielsenIQ Launches On-Shelf Availability (OSA) Barometer for U.S. Retailers · 2022 · US CPG syndicated store-level POS data 7.4% of US CPG sales were not realised due to out-of-stock or out-of-shelf items, costing retailers $82 billion in 2021 alone. nielseniq.com ↗
4. NielsenIQFresh Insights About Grocery On-Shelf Availability in the Post-COVID Era · 2026 · US grocery category measurement, ready-to-eat cereals worked example RTE cereal OSA fell from 97.4% in April 2021 to 93.8% in July 2021, costing $60 million in that month against an average monthly loss of $37 million, and $201 million across June to September 2021. nielseniq.com ↗
5. Pygmalios, citing Gruen, Corsten and Bharadwaj and ECR Retail LossState of Shelf Availability and Store Foot Traffic 2026 · 2026 · foundational GMA study of 71,000+ consumers across 29 countries, plus ECR Europe The global average out-of-stock rate is 8.3% and has barely moved in two decades, ECR Retail Loss reports around 8.6% across Europe, promotional items go out of stock at roughly twice the rate of non-promoted items, stock-outs cost about 4% of sales at retailer level, and when an item is missing about 31% of shoppers buy elsewhere while 9% do not buy at all. pygmalios.com ↗
6. Vision Group RetailOn-Shelf Availability: What It Is, Why Most CPG Brands Measure It Wrong · 2026 · image-recognition platform with a pre-trained library of over 1.3 million CPG SKUs Average grocery on-shelf availability sits between 92 and 95% in practice against a 98% target, dropping to 85 to 90% during promotional periods. visiongroupretail.com ↗
7. FieldPieWhat Is On-Shelf Availability (OSA)? The 2026 Complete Guide · 2026 · compilation citing RELEX Solutions and industry benchmarking data Out-of-stocks cost the global retail industry approximately 8% of sales, rising closer to 10% during promotions. Large grocery and mass merchandise retailers set internal OSA targets of 98% or higher, and below 95% is a red flag triggering supply chain review. fieldpie.com ↗
8. PazoOn-Shelf Availability in Retail: Definition, Formula, Benchmarks · 2026 · retail execution platform guidance Strong OSA typically falls between 95 and 98%, and anything below 95% begins to create measurable revenue leakage, especially on high-velocity and promoted lines. gopazo.com ↗
9. Xorosoft, citing NielsenIQStockout Statistics Every Retailer Should Know · 2026 · NIQ 2022 analysis across France, Spain and the UK NIQ reported roughly 4% shelf out-of-stock rates across France, Spain and the UK persisting for an average of four days, with 70% of shoppers switching brand and 30% visiting another store. xorosoft.com ↗
10. Chain Store Age, reporting IHL GroupIHL Group: Inventory Issues Cause $1.7T in Annual Losses · 2025 · IHL worldwide retail study, segment breakdown Supply chain disruption is the largest single contributor at $301 billion annually and personnel issues add $248 billion. Specialty hardgoods faced the highest overall distortion costs while food and grocery showed a 43.5% improvement rate. chainstoreage.com ↗