How a Retailer Stopped Losing $50k/Month to Stockouts and Overstock

The Problem

The retailer was growing fast, but inventory was becoming a nightmare. They suspected they were losing money, but they didn't know exactly how much. Stockouts meant lost sales, while overstock meant wasted cash sitting on shelves.

We analyzed their inventory data and found the real issues: They were manually tracking stock across 3 locations using spreadsheets that were always outdated. Popular items would run out without warning, causing $30k+ in lost sales monthly. Meanwhile, slow-moving items sat in warehouses, tying up $20k+ in cash that could be used elsewhere.

"We were constantly firefighting," the owner told us. "Either we were out of stock and losing customers, or we had too much of something that wasn't selling. We couldn't grow because our inventory was always wrong."

• Stock levels were tracked manually and always wrong.
• $30k+ in lost sales monthly from stockouts on popular items.
• $20k+ tied up in overstock that wasn't moving.

What We Found

Our analysis revealed three specific problems:

• 1.Inventory counts were done weekly by hand, so stock levels were always 3-7 days behind reality.
• 2.No automatic reordering - someone had to remember to check and order, which often didn't happen until too late.
• 3.No visibility across locations - they couldn't see what was available where without calling each store.

What We Built

We connected their POS system to a real-time inventory tracker. Now stock levels update automatically with every sale. The system monitors trends and automatically creates purchase orders when items get low. The owner gets alerts before stockouts happen, and can see inventory across all locations in one dashboard.