Stockouts do not begin the day the inventory hits zero
By Steven Pope · September 15, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Stockouts do not begin the day the inventory hits zero
They begin the day you skipped placing the PO
The math on this one is simple
The inputs are where sellers lie to themselves
Lead time is not a fixed number you set once and forget
Factories slip
Freight backs up
Amazon receiving crawls during peak season
If you are still using the lead time
Your supplier quoted you last year
You are planning around fiction
Pull your actual receipt dates
From your recent shipments
And use what really happened
Not what was promised
Sales velocity is the second leak
A trailing average smooths
Over a product that is climbing
If recent weekly sales are running hotter
Than your monthly average
The trend is your real input
Build a seasonal multiplier into it before Q4
Because holiday demand does not care
About your spreadsheet
Running lean is not free either
Amazon charges a low inventory level fee
When your days of supply run thin
So a reorder point that cuts it close
can cost you money in a month
You never actually went out of stock
Check your FBA restock limits and capacity
Before you cut the PO
A container you cannot send in
Is just expensive storage somewhere else
Overstock costs you storage fees
Stockouts cost you organic rank
Review velocity
The ad budget it takes to buy back
A position you already owned
One is a line item
The other is a rebuild
Amazon inventory management
is not a warehouse chore
It is rank protection
Set the reorder date
Treat it like a deadline