Seeing is acting

Paul Boyle, CEO of Retail Insight.

If you peek behind the curtain of grocery retail, there is a deflating inevitability affecting every balance sheet: retailers don’t have the product availability they think they have. Otherwise known as Phantom Inventory, this imbalance needs a data-led solution that enables targeted action to get the full potential from every store, says Paul Boyle, CEO of Retail Insight.

The reality is that on average, inventory records are only 50-60% accurate.  This might vary depending on the grocer, but the end result is the same: lost sales and decreased customer loyalty.  There is also the additional consideration of the cost of labour hours spent on manual, undirected corrections.

This inaccuracy is known as Phantom Inventory – or stock which appears to exist, but doesn’t.  By its nature it is inevitable within the retail environment as it’s caused by theft, improperly scanned items or short deliveries.  An analysis of the experience of major grocers in both the U.S. and the UK has highlighted that Phantom Inventory can cause as much as 80% of out of stocks (OOS) on the store shelf.

To read the full article please visit ISN Magazine