Stock-out Cost Calculator
What do out-of-stocks cost your chain each year?
Adjust the numbers to your operation. The calculation shows the sales that go to competitors, the margin lost with them and the capital tied up in stock that sits in the wrong place.
Example loadedHypothetical 10-store chain with R$500 million a year. Replace with your numbers.
Assumption. Use your chain's gross margin.
Brazilian average: 10.9% in August 2026 (Neogrid Out-of-Stock Index).
31% buy elsewhere and 9% don't buy (Gruen, Corsten and Bharadwaj, 2002).
Assumption. Days of sales in stock.
Assumption. Share of stock above what is needed.
Brazil's Selic rate at 13.75% a year after the September 2026 Copom meeting.
Conservative scenario. McKinsey estimates AI forecasting cuts errors by 20% to 50% and product unavailability by up to 65%. Nobody should promise that ceiling before a pilot.
Lost sales per year
R$ 21.8 M
R$ 2.2 M per store · 4.36%
Margin lost with it
R$ 4.4 M
Capital tied in overstock
R$ 5.8 M
R$ 791 k a year in capital cost
Today × with AI forecasting
TodayScenario
Annual margin gain
R$ 1 M
Capital released (one-off)
R$ 1.2 M
How it is calculated
- Affected sales = revenue × out-of-stock rate = R$ 54.5 M
- Lost sales = affected sales × lost share = R$ 21.8 M
- Lost margin = lost sales × gross margin = R$ 4.4 M
- Average stock = revenue × (1 − margin) ÷ 365 × coverage = R$ 38.4 M
- Overstock cost = stock × overstock × cost of capital = R$ 791 k
Simplification: the out-of-stock index measures the share of items missing and is applied to sales as an approximation. Overstock cost considers capital only, excluding storage, shrink and markdowns.
Find out where the number comes from before choosing a solution
In about 5 minutes, the AI Maturity Index shows where AI has the most potential in your operation, what it requires and where to start.
Reference estimate. It does not replace an analysis of your chain's data.