How To Prevent Stockouts: 7 Tips & Tools for Grocery Stores

Empty shelves spell disaster for you and your customers. 

They’ll have to make the trek to another grocery store, which will cost them time and delay dinner for a hungry family. 

You’ll miss out on a sale — and possibly lose a customer for good. 

That’s why we’ve created this quick guide on how to prevent stockouts in your grocery store. We’ll cover why stockouts happen, how they affect your bottom line, and the essential tools and best practices you need to keep them at bay. 

Understanding Stockouts: The Causes and Consequences

Stockouts happen when you run out of one of your grocery store’s most popular products, leaving your customers to settle for an alternative or turn to one of your competitors. 

Let’s start by exploring the why behind stockouts. The five main causes of stockouts are:

• Inaccurate inventory tracking: If you don’t keep a close eye on your stock levels, you won’t notice when you’re running low on a product or have the opportunity to replenish it in time. 
• Poor demand forecasting: If you don’t understand your customers’ shopping habits, you’ll struggle to stock their favorite products in the right amounts. 
• Insufficient inventory ordering: Failing to create accurate, timely purchase orders can delay the restocking process. 
• Supplier issues or delays: Unreliable vendors or supply chain issues can lead to delayed shipments and empty shelves. 
• Unexpected shifts in product demand: Sudden increases in product popularity due to seasonal shifts or social media trends might result in unexpected stockouts. 

Unfortunately, these problems can have serious consequences for your grocery store, including: 

• Loss of revenue: When customers can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll purchase fewer products or even walk out empty-handed. 
• Loss of customer loyalty: Frequent stockouts can frustrate customers and send them toward your competitors. 
• Increased operational costs: Stockouts and other inventory mistakes can lead to significant cash flow issues in the long run. 

In short, high sales and happy customers are essential ingredients for grocery store success, but frequent stockouts stand in the way of both. 

Must-Have Tools To Prevent Stockouts

To wage war against stockouts, you need the right weapons. Let’s look at three critical tools for grocery store inventory management. 

1. Inventory Management Software

The first step to preventing stockouts is to constantly and accurately monitor your grocery store’s inventory. 

Manually counting and recording your stock levels takes up valuable time and can lead to errors, which is why you need grocery store inventory management software.

This powerful tool tracks your inventory in real time and alerts you when you’re running low on a certain product, allowing you to take action before a stockout strikes. 

We recommend investing in an all-in-one inventory management and point of sale (POS) system specifically designed for grocery stores. Look for one with industry-specific features like perishable inventory management and weight-based sales.

Related Read: Grocery Store POS & Inventory Management Software: 6 Top Providers

2. Deli Scale With Printer

Products like meat and cheese are generally sold by weight, making them harder to track and more susceptible to stockouts. 

Luckily, the right deli and butcher department tools can help. Most importantly, you need a deli scale and printer that integrate seamlessly with your POS system. 

With these tools, your butchers can prepare customers’ orders accurately, track weight-based items down to the last ounce, and print custom barcode labels for each package to ensure fast, accurate checkouts and tracking. 

3. Reliable Refrigerators and Freezers

Equipment failures are any grocer’s worst nightmare. You’ll have to pay for expensive repairs and thousands of dollars of spoiled inventory, but that’s not all. 

You’ll face unexpected stockouts, frustrating customers and costing you sales. 

Investing in high-quality refrigerators and freezers can help you avoid this catastrophe. We also recommend building a relationship with a commercial refrigeration specialist to keep your equipment in tip-top shape. 

4 Ways To Safeguard Your Grocery Store Against Stockouts

You have the right tools — now it’s time to put them to work. Here’s how to prevent stockouts in your grocery store in four simple steps. 

1. Identify Your Bestselling Products

Your bestselling products are at the highest risk of stockouts — and running out of them can put a major dent in your revenue. 

Your POS system’s sales reports can help you pinpoint these popular products, breaking down which categories, brands, and specific items have the highest turnover and generate the biggest profits. 

From there, you can make a plan to keep these money-makers in stock. Along with setting up low-stock alerts and automatic purchase orders, you can maintain a larger inventory buffer for your bestsellers to accommodate any unexpected spikes in demand or interruptions in the supply chain. 

2. Forecast Inventory Demand

Demand forecasting is a crucial skill for avoiding grocery store stockouts. This strategy involves digging into your historical sales data and using it to predict your customers’ product preferences. 

Forecasting demand is especially important for stocking seasonal products. For example, you can make more informed decisions about what to stock over the summer by looking at last year’s sales reports from May to September. 

If the data reveals an uptick in sales for frozen treats, cookout essentials, and fresh produce, you can be proactive about stocking these products, ensuring your customers can always satisfy their seasonal cravings. 

3. Build Strong Supplier Relationships

Your grocery store’s vendors are your partners in preventing stockouts, but keeping a grocery store well-stocked requires teamwork. 

Here are a few of our top tips for keeping your suppliers happy and your shelves full: 

• Submit purchase orders promptly to give your vendors time to fulfill them, eliminating last-minute scrambles. 
• Ensure your suppliers are always paid on time. 
• Check in regularly with your vendors to ask about their constraints and work together on a contingency plan in the event of supply chain issues. 
• Consider diversifying your supplier base to avoid relying on a sole vendor to stock your grocery store. 

Investing in a POS system with vendor management features and built-in purchase order generation makes it easier to follow these best practices. 

4. Stay Up to Date on Trends

Don’t let your customers’ changing shopping habits catch you off guard. Instead, stay curious and informed about the latest grocery trends. 

Keep an eye on your sales reports, explore social media, and read grocery industry newsletters to learn how shoppers’ product preferences are changing.

For example, recipes like baked feta pasta or lasagna soup recently went viral on TikTok, leading to unexpected demand for feta, cherry tomatoes, and ricotta. Along with forecasting demand and stocking more of these items, you can even offer a trendy bundle deal or create a fun social media-themed display to show customers that you understand their wants and needs. 

Prevent Stockouts and Manage Inventory Like a Pro With IT Retail

Ready to put an end to stockouts in your grocery store? We can help! 

IT Retail is an all-in-one POS solution specifically designed to help grocers tackle their biggest challenges — from managing inventory to marketing. With our software, you can track your stock levels in real time, monitor expiration dates, sell items by weight, create purchase orders, and spot sales trends early. 

See these features in action by scheduling your live demo of IT Retail today!