Out-of-Stocks from Insufficient Staffing and Stock Management

$12,000–$18,000/year in inventory manager overtime + time waste; 5–10% shrinkage undetected due to poor cycle-count discipline; delayed reorder decisions = stockouts = lost sales • $3,000–$6,000/year in expired inventory write-offs; potential health liability if expired product sold; staff time wasted on manual lot checks; customer refunds/complaints • $3,000–$7,000/month in delayed/lost bulk orders; overtime costs; risk of losing recurring rescue contracts (potentially $20K–$50K/year revenue)

Apology email to rescue org; partial shipment; manual phone call to apologize; staff works overtime to pack secondary shipment; relationship strain • Backup staff member (untrained on reorder rules) must manually check par levels from a laminated sheet; unsure if they did it correctly; call to inventory manager at home to confirm • Billing specialists and front-line staff manually flag missing items during checkout or invoicing, keep personal notes on what is out-of-stock, and coordinate with store/DC staff via ad hoc emails, phone calls, and messaging apps to check backroom or alternate locations and to rush partial shipments.