Stockouts Now Cost More Than a Sale, and the Bill Is Growing
Amazon’s Prime Day kicks off today, June 23, and the pre-event numbers are a little awkward: brands are walking in with more inventory than last year and still losing more money to empty shelves. Revenue lost to out-of-stock events is up about 24% year over year, according to CommerceIQ, even though on-hand inventory climbed roughly 12% over the same period. More stock, and somehow more lost revenue. That’s the odd part.
What happened
CommerceIQ released its pre-Prime Day analysis on June 18, five days before the event’s June 23–26 run. The headline numbers describe a brand that looks healthier almost everywhere except the one spot that matters most when demand peaks:
- On-hand inventory up roughly 12% year over year
- Revenue lost to out-of-stock events up roughly 24% year over year
- The out-of-stock rate itself held fairly steady, and purchase-order fill rates stayed around 83%
- Retail media ROAS came in around $5.80, the highest in nearly two years
- Average conversion hit 29.8% through the first five months of 2026, up about 15% from a year earlier
The losses aren’t spread evenly. They pile up inside each brand’s highest-revenue products, the exact things shoppers go in looking for. A steady stockout rate paired with a sharp jump in lost revenue tells you the gaps are hitting the bestsellers.
CommerceIQ CEO Guru Hariharan tied the shift to how people now shop: “When AI guides the shopping journey, consumers arrive at a product already decided. And if your product isn’t in stock at that moment, you don’t just miss out on a sale, you miss out on a customer relationship.”
Why it matters
The old assumption was that a stockout costs you one transaction. This data says it costs you the shopper. When an AI assistant or a quick search sends someone straight to a product they’ve already decided on, an “out of stock” message ends the trip. They didn’t come to browse, so there’s no second-choice product to fall back on and usually no second visit.
So availability stops being just a fulfillment number. It becomes part of the storefront experience itself.
What this means for Shopify merchants
This is Amazon’s data, but the lesson carries over. On your own storefront, a sold-out product is rarely harmless, because it still takes up space, and usually good space. On a collection page sorted by “featured” or “best selling,” your out-of-stock hero can sit right at the top, eating the first clicks while the things a shopper can buy get pushed below the fold.
It’s the same wound CommerceIQ is measuring, just on your turf: a ready-to-buy visitor lands, sees something they can’t have, and leaves. You don’t fix it by hiding products or breaking your URLs. You fix it by reordering, keeping available items where attention lands and letting sold-out ones drift down until they’re restocked. That’s what Pushy does on Shopify collection pages, moving out-of-stock products to the bottom while leaving your SEO and product pages intact.
“If your product isn’t in stock at that moment, you don’t just miss out on a sale, you miss out on a customer relationship.” — Guru Hariharan, CEO, CommerceIQ
The bottom line
Inventory planning gets all the attention before a big sale, but how your store presents what’s in stock is just as much money on the line. As shoppers show up more decided and less patient, the stores that win are the ones where the first thing a visitor sees is something they can buy today.