Am I the only one who thinks stores are only ordering items as needed?

[red324]

I think companies are taking advantage of not having to hold inventory, by having a lot of items that used to be commonly in stock internet order only now. They have the items we just have to wait a week now to come in. Opinions? It never does a store much good to have inventory sitting on the shelf not selling. I think maybe their was a shortage at one point, but now they're taking advantage of the fact that waiting for items to be ordered is the norm now.

[LazerBean]

Usually stores like Walmart keep track of about how much of something they need over a certain period and keep that much in stock. So when stuff like panic buying starts, it throws the whole system off. But sometimes there are weird random shortages, like for example I've been having a hard time getting water softening salt from my walmart. I asked the guy about it, and he said he doesn't know why but they just have it been able to get as much as they want. Also a couple weeks ago for some reason there was a random saltine cracker shortage here. A lot of producers are just out of whack right now.

[slatyb]

Of course that's what they are doing. There's a cost to holding inventory. They have to balance the cost of holding inventory with the lost profit when they are sold out. Ideally they have goods delivered just in time to meet demand.

[slatyb]

I used to work on software to manage inventory.

[exitseven]

I do feel like I cannot find what I need in one store so I have to look someplace else. I was in Tractor Supply today and I could see how small their inventory has gotten.

[red324]

Oh yeah I waited like 3 months from them to get some 3 point hitch bushings in. The girl was like we haven't gotten a county line order in in a while..

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎😎