Stockouts and Overstocking from Poor Inventory Allocation

$18% excess costs from mass merch overstock elsewhere. • $18% excess holding costs and 20% revenue loss from stockouts. • $18% global holding costs and distributor revenue loss.

Combining marketplace forecasts, DTC plans, and last year’s data in spreadsheets, then guessing a total purchase quantity with manual buffers and later reallocating when digital channels either overperform or underperform. • Compiling store-level order and sales histories into spreadsheets, manually deciding which shops get limited inventory, and using ad hoc transfer orders if certain shops are drowning in stock while others are empty. • CSRs escalate to key account and operations teams, use spreadsheets to track what was promised versus what was delivered, and arrange last-minute substitutions or cross-channel pulls.