IN Brief:
- A DHL Supply Chain and Retail Economics study estimates £2.1bn in displaced grocery sales.
- One in five grocery trips is said to include at least one out-of-stock item.
- Convenience stores are reported to carry a disproportionate share of stock-out impact.
Product availability is becoming a defining performance metric in UK grocery, with new analysis from DHL Supply Chain and Retail Economics linking stock availability directly to loyalty behaviours. The report, The Availability Effect: Why trust, margin and loyalty start at the shelf edge, draws on in-store audits, a survey of 2,000 UK households, and economic modelling to quantify the commercial and behavioural impact of out-of-stocks.
The headline estimate is scale: one in five UK grocery trips is said to involve at least one missing item, equivalent to around 930 million affected shopping visits each year. Across the sector, the report puts displaced sales at roughly £2.1bn annually, reflecting spend that is either deferred, shifted to alternative products, or moved to competing retailers.
Consumer behaviour in the study is framed as increasingly elastic at the point of failure. DHL and Retail Economics found that 44% of consumers say they have switched or added another supermarket in the past year because of stock availability issues. The figure rises to almost two-thirds among shoppers under 45, and nearly six in ten respondents (59%) say availability is a key reason they shop across multiple stores.
The analysis also separates the impact by retail format, with convenience emerging as an operational pressure point. Convenience stores account for around one-fifth of grocery sales, but the report attributes almost half of displaced spend due to stock-outs to that channel. Availability in convenience formats is described as typically sitting in the low-to-mid 80% range, compared with 90%-plus in supermarkets and hypermarkets, and 63% of shoppers said they believe availability is worse in convenience stores.
Nick Archer, Managing Director, Convenience and Consumer, DHL Supply Chain, said: “The research shows that even small stock gaps can have a significant impact on how shoppers feel about a retailer. Despite the pressure on shoppers’ wallets, loyalty is being driven by more than price. In a market where customers can switch stores with ease, availability is much more than an operational metric. Being competitive in today’s market requires precision. Retailers and their partners need to be able to predict disruption, integrate data and execute efficiently”.
For operators, the numbers underline how quickly shelf-edge execution becomes a network problem. Availability is influenced by upstream service levels, lead-time variability, substitution rules, store replenishment discipline, and the quality and latency of inventory data across depots and stores. Smaller stores also run with tighter backroom capacity and more frequent deliveries, which can amplify the impact of forecast error or late inbound activity, even when overall network fill rates look stable.
Richard Lim, Chief Executive, Retail Economics, said: “In today’s environment of busy lifestyles, hybrid working and smaller, more frequent shopping trips, customers expect to find what they need quickly and easily. This is not only limited to grocery, but in all retail sectors, from fashion to beauty. Convenience comes down to having products there when the customer needs them, and availability has become the clearest sign of reliability. Retailers who get it right will be the ones who earn trust and lasting loyalty”.
With out-of-stocks now quantified as both a revenue and retention risk, the practical focus shifts toward earlier detection of gaps, tighter data integration between retailers and logistics partners, and replenishment approaches that can keep pace with channel mix, store format constraints, and demand volatility.
