Product Manager, Inventory & Operations
Reducing stockouts and overstock is the goal of balancing supply with demand: keep enough safety stock to absorb surprises, forecast from real sales history, and let reorder points trigger replenishment so you neither run out nor hoard.
Ironically, the businesses that over-order to avoid stockouts often end up with dead stock, and the businesses that cut stock aggressively end up with empty shelves. Both are symptoms of guessing instead of using data.
Safety stock is the extra quantity you hold above expected demand to cover lead-time delays and demand spikes. A starting rule is one to two weeks of average sales for core items, adjusted for how reliable your supplier is.
Use 30-90 days of sales to estimate daily demand per product. Watch for seasonality — the same item that flies in one month may be slow the next. Forecasting from actual sales, not gut feel, is what separates consistent availability from firefighting.
Track stockout count, dead-stock value, and stock-on-hand value every week. When you can see both a rising stockout rate and rising dead stock, you know your reorder logic, not your buying team, needs fixing.
A stockout is running out of an item customers want; overstock is holding more than you can sell, tying up cash and storage.
A common starting point is one to two weeks of average sales for core items, increased for long-lead or critical products.
Reorder point = (average daily demand x supplier lead time in days) + safety stock.
If stockouts and dead stock rise at the same time, your reorder logic is wrong — not your buyers. Fix thresholds and forecasting.
Yes. Retten Work triggers draft stock requests below reorder points and routes them through approvals automatically.
