It may seem obvious that if you do not have products on the shelf, then business will be lost. What is not obvious, however, is the extent to which this can destroy value for retailers and manufacturers.
For the manufacturer, 46 per cent of the time the shopper will either substitute for another brand or not buy at all, according to recent research for ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) Europe. For the retailer, the biggest risks are that products are not bought at all, or that the shopper will buy the product from a competing store. When they have no stock, this happens 30 per cent of the time.
