2. Provide a reliable ATP and take future stock into account
Your customer’s overall experience very much includes the moment they see what’s available to buy. Showing items as “in stock” when they aren’t leads to frustration, cancellations, and distrust; showing items you’re expected to have as ‘out of stock’ is just as frustrating.
To avoid either of these scenarios, your systems must only display stock that’s Available To Promise (ATP) with the highest level of reliability, meaning inventory that can be ordered with a high degree of confidence that it can be fulfilled. ATP calculations depend on knowledge of two key factors:
- current stock (everything physically in inventory); less
- reserved stock (items already sold or allocated).
However, to genuinely maximize the accuracy of what you display to customers, your back-office systems must also account for future stock – for instance, items due to arrive from suppliers, expected to be manufactured, or products expected to be returned by customers. Including these inputs enables you to give customers a more accurate view of available products, selling more while holding less stock.
3. Automate alternative order sourcing when disruption occurs
Even with the very best planning, disruptions happen. Suppliers miss deadlines, stock gets damaged, logistics partners face delays... The key is not to avoid every disruption (which is impossible) but to respond instantly and intelligently when they happen.
Make sure you’re set up to fulfill orders from alternative locations if something goes wrong. For example, if a warehouse can’t ship an item because of a damaged product or a carrier pickup is missed, your systems should automatically reassign fulfilment to another site with available stock. Automatically, but also intelligently, to avoid situations where a keychain is shipped from across the world - making you lose money, for a minimal impact on customer satisfaction.
To do this effectively, your organization needs a unified view of stock across all locations and automated, fine orchestration rules that align with your business priorities. You should be able to configure your system to decide whether to fulfill from another warehouse, delay delivery, or prioritize certain customers (for instance, “VIP” clients or urgent orders). This enables you to implement specific brand values, if necessary: for example, it may only be possible to fulfil an order at a CO2/emissions ‘cost’ that’s incompatible with your brand, in which case you can make an alternative plan of action – up to and including a decision to not fulfil, if that’s appropriate.
And since you’re multiplying sourcing options by pooling stocks and security stock, these can thus be reduced while keeping the same service levels.
4. Lean into your extended supply chain
Modern commerce doesn’t stop at your own warehouses. To truly reduce stock-outs, look to your partners, resellers, or distributors, which may hold stock that could be used to fulfil your customers’ orders, when your own proprietary or franchised network has run dry. All this, without the customer ever noticing a difference, or by clearly communicating this new workflow: it depends on what you’re ready to display.
Once again, this should also be the result of a well thought-out strategy, not just crude application, or costs might be high. Beyond technology, this requires strong collaboration with your partners… but clearly, to make this work, your order orchestration back-office systems must also enable real-time connectivity and data sharing across your network.
5. Offer a substitute
When all else fails and, despite every effort (within reason, as described above), no product is available, offering a substitute product may yield a better result than cancelling the order outright. In some cases, it’s even a better solution than activating external sourcing networks and might be invisible for the client, for instance when the same product is informatically stored under different references. Even when visible, it can turn out to bring more value to the client, like getting a larger bottle of water with no additional cost… but that’s not a guarantee, as some people order a specific size for a specific use, and that particular use case isn’t really a thing outside of the grocery sector.
Substitution is also relevant for other sectors – say, furniture, fashion, and even automotive parts. In the latter, offering an alternative to a missing OEM spare part can be a totally acceptable solution, depending on the customer agreement signed by the client.
Depending on the situation, substitution may require to obtain the customer’s agreement, offering choices such as:
- accept a substitute product
- wait for restock and delayed delivery
- a refund
In any case, to do this well, your systems need to be able to identify suitable substitutes (themselves being available to sell) and facilitate clear, customer-driven communication.
You can sell more while actually holding less stock
Reducing instances of “missing product” is not just about avoiding disappointment; it’s about unlocking efficiency and growth. Each of the five strategies above – planning ahead, increasing ATP reliability, finding fulfillment alternatives, leveraging your extended supply chain, and offering substitutes – helps you maximize the stock that’s visible and sellable to customers. In other words, you can sell more with less stock. By implementing these strategies through a powerful, flexible Order Management System, you can even transform stock-outs from a reactive problem into a proactive opportunity.
For each of the strategies above, here’s how Kbrw’s OMS can help:
- Planning ahead: providing real-time, unified stock calculations that enable smarter, data-driven replenishment decisions – before gaps appear.
- Only showing customers stock that’s truly available: calculating ATP in real time, including future and reserved stock, and even allowing you to include a configurable safety margin to account for possible disruptions (like delayed restocking or failed returns). This helps you strike the perfect balance between maximizing sales opportunities and maintaining customer trust.
- Finding alternative ways to fulfill orders: Kbrw’s OMS excels at this with real-time, automated arbitration and orchestration of order flows. It enables you to define your own fulfillment logic (perhaps factoring in cost, CO₂ impact, or client type) and instantly communicates any changes to warehouses, carriers, and customers. That means everyone stays informed, and your customer experience remains consistent, even under pressure.
- Leaning into extended supply chains: serving as a single source of truth, unifying inventory visibility across your ecosystem and ensuring accurate ATP calculations even when sourcing beyond your own facilities when needed. This capability helps you build resilience into your operations, transforming potential stock-outs into fulfillment success stories.
- Substitution offers: Kbrw’s OMS includes substitution management capabilities that make it easy to handle these situations. It allows you to propose alternatives, manage approvals, and update fulfillment (and financial) flows in real time, keeping customers informed at every step. Even when substitution adds complexity, real-time orchestration and data synchronization across systems ensure that communication and action remain smooth and timely.
In other words: through unified stock visibility, reliable ATP, real-time orchestration, and substitution management, Kbrw can help you maintain the delicate balance between efficiency and customer satisfaction, and help ensure that your brand delivers on its promise, every time.
Yearning for a real-life example? Find out how Louis Vuitton manages to keep only 1 reference of each product in store and still manage to offer excellent customer experience without stockout frustration, through a truly reactive supply chain with Kbrw’s OMS.
