🇺🇸United States

Overstocking to Avoid Stock‑Outs Increases Carrying Costs

5 verified sources

Definition

Many optometrists overstock disposable contacts to ensure instant availability, but this strategy increases carrying costs for space, insurance, shrinkage risk, and financing. The incremental profit from same‑day sales often does not fully offset the cost of maintaining excessive inventory levels.

Key Findings

  • Financial Impact: $2,000–$10,000 per year in excess carrying cost per practice for space, financing, and risk tied to above‑optimal inventory levels (trade estimates and case commentary)
  • Frequency: Monthly
  • Root Cause: Desire to provide same‑day lenses and fear of losing patients to competitors leads practices to hold broad inventory, including rarely used parameters.[1][2][7] Without data‑driven turnover tracking or just‑in‑time approaches, inventory levels are set by habit or sales pressure rather than actual demand, raising storage and capital costs.[1][2][6][9]

Why This Matters

This pain point represents a significant opportunity for B2B solutions targeting Optometrists.

Affected Stakeholders

Practice owner / OD, Practice manager, Inventory / optical lead

Deep Analysis (Premium)

Financial Impact

$1,000–$3,000 per year in extra inventory held primarily to satisfy chair‑side comfort rather than actual utilization. • $1,000–$3,000 per year in extra safety stock influenced by lab workflow preferences. • $1,000–$3,000 per year in extra stock and carrying cost for lenses designated for government‑insured patients.

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Current Workarounds

Broad stocking of all covered SKUs for common plans based on formulary lists and subjective impressions of local demographics, logged in basic spreadsheets and occasional physical counts. • Building a buffer inventory of common corporate SKUs in the lab based on rough memory of previous orders. • Building custom Excel sheets to track which SKUs are ‘must have’ for specific employers and ordering extra without real‑time consumption feedback.

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Methodology & Sources

Data collected via OSINT from regulatory filings, industry audits, and verified case studies.

Evidence Sources:

Related Business Risks

Cash Tied Up in Slow‑Moving and Obsolete Contact Lens Inventory

$5,000–$30,000 in working capital locked in low‑turn or obsolete contact lens stock per practice, with additional 2–5% of annual contact lens revenue lost through discounting/expiration (industry commentary and case experience)

Inconsistent Ordering Creates Lost Margin on the Same Lenses

1–3 percentage‑points of contact lens gross margin lost annually due to inconsistent unit costs and missed rebate tiers (practice case commentary)

Missed Same‑Day Sales and Leakage to Online/Big‑Box Retailers

5–15% of potential contact lens revenue lost annually to outside channels for practices that cannot provide convenient same‑day or streamlined ordering (reported by practice experts and trade guidance)

Labor Overhead from Manual Contact Lens Inventory Management

$300–$1,500 per month in avoidable staff labor per location tied to manual counting, logging, and returns of contact lens inventory (based on typical staff wage rates and time estimates in trade commentary)

Expired and Unusable Contact Lens Stock

$500–$3,000 per year in write‑offs for many small and mid‑size practices, and higher for large multi‑location groups (trade estimates from inventory‑efficiency guidance)

Delayed Billing and Cash Collection for Contact Lens Supplies

Value at risk of 2–5 days of additional accounts receivable on contact lens revenue, plus occasional fully missed charges (practice estimates from workflow case commentary)

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