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Out of stock statistics, dated and sourced

Most stockout numbers in circulation are undated, mislabeled or both. Here is what the research actually says, with a year and a source on every figure and the famous misquotes corrected.

Marcus VolstedCo-founder, Restocio Published 30 August 2026Updated 30 August 20269 min read

Start with the number you can feel

A 2026 Katana analysis of 375 product brands selling on Shopify, Amazon and other channels found the typical brand loses about $21,000 a year to stockouts on its best sellers, and that 59% of stockouts hit a product that had already run out earlier the same year. That is the most useful stockout statistic available right now, because it is weeks old and measured per brand, and it describes businesses your size rather than the entire global retail industry.

The figures with twelve zeros are further down the page, each with its year attached. They are context. The per-brand numbers are a diagnosis. And because stockout statistics are among the most misquoted numbers in ecommerce writing, this page holds itself to one rule: every figure carries its data year in the sentence, and links a source that was actually opened. Where the honest answer is that nobody knows, the page says so.

What stockouts cost per brand

Katana's study, published in August 2026, tracked a year of actual stockouts across 375 brands rather than surveying anyone about their feelings, which makes it rare in this genre. The headline numbers:

Sit with the frequency line for a moment. Fourteen stockouts of about two days each never feels like a crisis while it is happening. It reads as the cost of doing business, which is exactly why most brands never total it up. The repeat rate says the same thing from another angle: in the same 2026 data, 59% of stockouts were not surprises, they were reruns. If that one stings, the causes behind repeat stockouts, and the fix for each, are in how to stop running out of stock.

Full disclosure on this study, because this page owes you that: Katana sells inventory software, the detailed methodology sits behind a download form, and the report is new enough that nobody independent has kicked its tires yet. It is the best per-brand measurement that exists, not a peer-reviewed one, and this page will say so for as long as that stays true.

One more figure from the same corner of the market. A 2024 survey of 100 US and Canadian Shopify merchants who hold physical inventory, run by WBR Insights for Katana, found 83% struggle to keep inventory, manufacturing and accounting data in sync. One hundred respondents is a small base and the survey was vendor-commissioned, so hold it loosely. It appears here because it is the only Shopify-merchant-specific survey we could find.

The trillions, correctly dated

Now the big numbers, which are real and almost always quoted wrong. Two different measures circulate. The famous 2015 figure counted three things together: overstocks, out-of-stocks and preventable returns. IHL Group's current series measures what it calls inventory distortion, which is out-of-stocks plus overstocks only, with returns excluded. Different rulers. Quoting one as the other is how most of the misquotes in the next section were born.

Three reading notes. The 2015 study earned its fame, and at eleven years old it belongs in a museum unless the year travels with it. The 2002 study is the canonical academic baseline, measured in physical grocery and consumer goods stores 24 years ago; it keeps getting cited because nothing of its rigor has replaced it, not because the number still describes current shelves. And Adobe's 2 billion messages describe October 2021, the worst month of the supply chain crisis, not a normal one.

The one current dollar figure worth memorizing sits in the middle of the table: out-of-stocks alone accounted for $1.2 trillion of the $1.77 trillion inventory distortion total in 2023, per IHL. If you ever quote a trillions figure, quote that one, with the year on it.

What shoppers do when you are out

The best-measured answer is old, and honest about being old. In the 2002 GMA/FMI study, US shoppers who hit a stockout split five ways: 32% bought the item at another store, 20% substituted a different brand, 20% substituted the same brand, 17% delayed the purchase and 11% did not buy at all.

For a brand selling direct, the first line is the one that matters. The single most common response to a stockout was to hand the sale to someone else, and online turns that switch from a drive across town into a click. It is hard to argue the 2002 in-store numbers overstate what happens to an ecommerce brand today. But that is an argument, not a measurement. No replication at that scale exists for online shopping, and this page will not pretend otherwise.

The four numbers everyone gets wrong

Stockout content recycles the same broken statistics, mostly because writers copy each other's citations instead of opening them. An early page on this site repeated one of them too, which is part of why this page now exists. The four to stop trusting:

The last row deserves one more sentence, because the honest version is genuinely useful. Industry rules of thumb put annual carrying cost anywhere from 15% to 30% of inventory value, and nobody can point to the study. Your own number is knowable from your own books: warehouse cost, the cost of the capital tied up, insurance and write-offs, divided by average inventory value. It takes an afternoon and beats any borrowed percentage. Where that money actually sits in your catalogue, product by product, is the subject of profitable but no cash.

What nobody can prove

The gaps, stated plainly, because a statistics page that cannot say "nobody knows" will eventually tell you something false.

• No credible figure isolates ecommerce-only stockout losses. Every macro number above covers all of retail. Any claim shaped like "stockouts cost ecommerce X" is a derivative of an all-retail figure, not a measurement.
• Carrying cost has no primary source. The 15 to 30% range is folklore wearing a tie. Compute your own.
• Online stockout behavior has never been measured at 2002 scale. The rigorous switching data comes from physical stores 24 years ago. Everything since is smaller surveys, vendor panels or the 2021 pandemic anomaly.

Using these numbers

Taken together, the honest data says stockout losses are chronic rather than catastrophic, they land hardest on best sellers, and most of them are repeats. That makes them a timing problem more than a demand problem. The only figure that should drive a decision in your store is your own, and it is cheaper to compute than to look up: days out of stock on your top products, times their honest daily sales rate, times margin. If the result looks anything like the $21,000 the 2026 Katana study measured, the deadline arithmetic that removes it is laid out end to end in our Shopify replenishment guide.

Common questions

How much do stockouts cost retailers?

Globally, IHL Group put out-of-stocks at $1.2 trillion of the $1.77 trillion inventory distortion total in 2023. Per business, a 2026 Katana analysis of 375 brands found the typical brand loses about $21,000 a year to stockouts on its best sellers, with the hardest-hit 10% of brands losing $268,000 or more.

What is inventory distortion?

IHL Group's term for out-of-stocks plus overstocks combined, with returns excluded. It totaled $1.77 trillion globally in 2023, and IHL projects around $1.7 trillion for 2026, about 6.2% of worldwide retail sales. It is a narrower measure than the 2015 figure of $1.75 trillion, which also counted preventable returns.

Is the $1.75 trillion stockout statistic still accurate?

It was never a stockout statistic. It is IHL Group's 2015 estimate of overstocks, out-of-stocks and preventable returns combined, and it is eleven years old. The current series puts inventory distortion, without returns, at roughly $1.7 trillion. If you need a trillions figure, use the 2023 or 2026 numbers with their years attached.

What percentage of sales do retailers lose to being out of stock?

The only rigorous estimate comes from the 2002 GMA/FMI study, which found a typical retailer loses about 4% of sales to out-of-stocks, with an average out-of-stock rate of 8.3%. It measured physical consumer goods retail 24 years ago, and nothing of similar rigor has replaced it, so treat it as a baseline rather than a current fact.

How often do best sellers go out of stock?

In Katana's 2026 analysis of 375 brands, best-selling products went out of stock roughly 14 times a year for about two days each, and 59% of stockouts hit a product that had already run out earlier that year. Stockouts tend to be short and repeated rather than rare and dramatic, which is why the losses go untotaled.

Are inventory carrying costs really 20 to 30% of inventory value?

Nobody can prove it. The range gets attributed to ISM, APICS and textbooks, and none of them point to an actual study; quoted rules of thumb run anywhere from 15% to 30%. Your own carrying cost is computable from your warehouse bill, cost of capital, insurance and write-offs, and that number is worth more than any borrowed one.

Marcus Volsted

Co-founder, Restocio

Marcus co-founded Restocio and works on it daily with a Swedish importer who plans their purchasing in it every working day. Most of the examples on this blog come from that store's real ordering decisions rather than from a textbook. Why we are building it.

Related reading

• How to stop running out of stock
• Profitable but no cash, and where the money actually went
• Shopify replenishment, end to end