In: Economics
PRODUCT UNAVAILABLE !!
While surfing on the internet and looking around stuff to buy you might have come across this for sure. Product unavailable or out of stock are scenarios referred to as Stockouts.
This might also happen during offline shopping, as you bought some items from a store but when the second time you went to buy it was out of stock.
Consumer behaviors( listed above ) in such a scenario depends on a number of factors, some of them are-
Presence of good alternative ( either a good alternative brand is present or an alternative product is present or not )
Presence of Competing vendors. ( Can the consumer get that item in another nearby place or not )
Switching stores to get the product is the most harmful action for the retailer.
As a retailer, if such a situation arises try not to make stockout immediately visible, for this
1. suggests a replacement item.
2. offer them discounts if the replacement is expensive ( cost born by the store for giving that discount, surely will be less than the cost of losing a customer )
3. Place emergency orders to the supplier or if possible get the item from other suppliers.
4. Promise customers to send notification on the arrival of the product.
Nowadays Technology can help to avoid such stockouts-
Employing Inventory monitoring systems and demand forecasting Softwares can bring a significant drop in number of such situations.