Inventory & Availability Guardian · Brief 02
Weekly availability & overstock review
Where the stock gets stuck, by product × region
The one line you configure
This week, where is availability slipping across the network, is stock genuinely short or just not reaching the shelf, and where is overstock building the other way? Trace it end to end.
In a nutshell
The stock is stuck, not missing. Of the units sent to the Northeast this week, 38% are still in transit and 21% sit unshelved in the store backroom — 59% never reached the shelf — while fast movers kept selling. It is a flow bottleneck: milk, eggs and soda carry most of the ~$1.4M weekly lost-sales risk. The opposite way, Home goods in the West are over-ordered at 9.1 weeks of supply, ~$0.8M of markdown exposure building.
At a glance
Stock flow · warehouse → shelf (Northeast, this week)
59% of the week's shipment never reached the shelf — 38% stuck in transit, 21% sitting in the backroom — while what did reach it sold through fast.
Products at risk · sales speed × weeks of supply × lost sales
Bubble size = lost-sales dollars. The risk is the top-left: fast-selling products below one week of shelf supply — milk and eggs carry most of it.
Top at-risk products · route these first
| Product | Region | In-stock % | Shelf weeks | Lost sales / wk | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milk 2% gal | Northeast metro | 83% | 0.4 | $0.42M | expedite from Warehouse 3 |
| Eggs, dozen | Northeast metro | 85% | 0.6 | $0.31M | expedite from Warehouse 3 |
| Soda 12-pack | Northeast | 89% | 0.8 | $0.22M | move backroom → shelf |
| Sofa, 3-seat | West | 100% | 9.1 | — | over-ordered · markdown risk |
The three grocery products are pure routing — the stock is in the warehouse or backroom; the West sofa is the opposite problem, over-ordered.
Why the weekly view matters
A single day can look like a normal restock cycle; tracing a full week of flow from warehouse to shelf is what surfaces the units piling up in transit and the backroom — the routing bottleneck a same-day view cannot size.
So what
Traced end to end, the shortage is a flow problem: 59% of the week's Northeast shipment never reached the shelf — 38% stuck in transit, 21% unshelved in the backroom — while fast movers sold through hard. Lost-sales risk concentrates in a few grocery products (milk, eggs, soda). Separately, Home goods in the West are over-ordered at 9.1 weeks, heading for markdown.
The points that matter
What
59% of the week's Northeast shipment never reached the shelf — traced across warehouse → transit → backroom → shelf, by product × region.
59%never shelvedWhy
Stock is stuck in transit (38%) and unshelved in the backroom (21%) while fast movers sold through — a flow bottleneck, not a supply gap.
38% / 21%transit / backroomWhat else
The opposite risk is building the other way — Home goods in the West are over-ordered at 9.1 weeks of supply, ~$0.8M of markdown exposure, even as grocery runs short.
9.1wkHome, West overstockWhere
A handful of grocery products — milk, eggs, soda — in Northeast-metro stores carry most of the ~$1.4M lost-sales risk.
$1.4Mlost sales · wkRecommendation
Run this as the standing weekly availability review: expedite the top grocery products from the warehouse, clear the backroom labour gap, and rebalance the West's Home-goods over-order before it marks down. DataGenie traces and sizes the flow — the routing and labour calls stay with the restocking and store teams.
Questions it already answers
Which stage is the real bottleneck — transit or the backroom?
Both, but transit is larger (38% vs 21%). Expedite what's in transit for the fast movers; clear the backroom with a labour shift.
How much of the lost sales is truly recoverable?
The share still in the warehouse or backroom — most of it. Only genuinely un-shipped units are lost; the trace separates them.
Is the West overstock the same root cause?
No — it's an over-order, not a routing miss. Different fix: rebalance the buy and pre-empt the markdown.