Understanding and Preventing Lost Sales

You have invested time in finding the right product to sell, perfected your marketing campaigns, and you’ve received high account rankings through amazing customer feedback. Your efforts are finally paying off as you attract potential buyers to visit your Amazon business. However, at the point of purchase, the buyer encounters a roadblock — despite all of your efforts, you are not able to close the deal, because the item is out-of-stock!

After you’ve worked so hard to bait the customer and reel them in– the sale is still lost. Now, the buyer will probably navigate over to a competitor who is selling the same or a similar product, and make the purchase, which will translate into a lost sale for you.

Most Common Reason(s) for Lost Sales

By definition, a lost sale is a selling opportunity you miss out on for items that are out-of-stock. You can’t sell something that isn’t in your inventory. Other reasons may relate to this, like a customer clicking on your ad but not being able to buy the product from you because you’re out of stock.

Tools to Analyze Lost Sales

It is essential to analyze your lost sales, learn from your past mistakes and replenish your stock to meet future demand.This seems so obvious, doesn’t it? But let’s be honest, it is nearly impossible to try to translate all this data on your own for hundreds, maybe thousands of SKUs. This is where you can utilize a third-party software to analyze potential lost sales and help you determine and prevent future lost sales while at the same time avoiding overstocking and paying exorbitant long-term storage fees.

How Do You Analyze Lost Sales?

• A lost sales analysis tool is capable of analyzing past inventory records to determine out-of-stock items for a given period of time. In general, this tool looks at past lost sales by date, brands, categories and suppliers in order to produce a comprehensive past lost sales report.
• Once past inventory trends and sales forecasts are analyzed, the tool can then determine potential future lost sales due to out-of-stock items by items, brands, categories and suppliers. It breaks down crucial data for each component, taking that cumbersome chore off your to-do list.
• A lost sales analysis tool uses accurate and timely reports so it is easy for you to identify where you lost sales, and thus, avoid product shortage in the future. With its in-depth analytics, you are in a better position to restock at the right levels to meet customers’ demands.

What Happens If I Reduce Lost Sales?

Cha-ching! It all comes down to two words “more money.” With the cash on hand to maintain the right inventory levels, you can increase your sales. Using lost sales analysis, you can restock without over-purchasing and hurting your cash flow. SellerMobile offers a great tool that will provide you with a competitive edge so you can make the necessary adjustments to reduce inventory gaps, stock best-selling products and meet customer demand. Get daily Amazon payouts from Payability to reinvest quickly and say “good bye” to lost sales for good.