Most of what you lose, you did not lose to thieves
When stock goes missing, the instinct is to suspect people. Sometimes that is right. But the standard definition of shrinkage contains three causes, and only one of them is theft.
3 min read
research
5 pieces
The food you lose before you sell it
For anyone selling something that can go off, loss is not an exception to manage — it is a structural cost of the category. The regional figures are stark, official, and more conservative than the ones usually quoted.
3 min read
Why your supplier orders swing harder than your sales
Your sales are reasonably steady. Your purchase orders are not. That gap is not a failure of discipline on your part — it is a well-documented property of supply chains, and it has a name and four causes.
What actually happens when the shelf is empty
Everyone agrees stockouts cost sales. Far fewer people can say how much, or where the sale goes instead — and the answer is more useful than the agreement, because most of it is invisible in your own till.
2 min read
Your stock record is probably wrong, and there is research that says so
Every argument for taking stock control seriously rests on one premise: that the number in your system is usually not the number on your shelf. That premise has been measured, by academics, at a retailer that already had a real system.