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Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Fulfilment & Logistics

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At a glance

Live count of SKUs with zero or negative on-hand inventory across all ShipBob DCs, scoped to SKUs with measurable recent demand (no point alerting on dead-SKU stockouts). The “what is missing right now and customers want it” number for ops and merchandising.

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your ShipBob data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

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Worked example

A US DTC supplements brand using ShipBob 3PL with 3 DCs and a 180-SKU catalogue. Reading taken at 09:00 ET on 12 Mar 26. The card reads 4 OOS SKUs (MAGNESIUM-500, OMEGA-3-90CT, BIOTIN-90CT, PROBIOTIC-30CT) network-wide. Five things to notice:
  1. Single-DC OOS is hidden by design. Ashwagandha and Vitamin D3 are out at one DC each but in stock elsewhere; ShipBob’s routing engine sends Ashwagandha orders to Chicago and Vitamin D3 orders to Chicago, so customers see “in stock” and orders ship cleanly. The card counts only network-wide OOS to surface customer-facing problems, not warehouse-floor curiosities. Pivot to Inventory Heatmap to see single-DC OOS for restocking decisions.
  2. The Magnesium-500 and Probiotic-30CT lines are the bleeding ones. Top-3 SKUs combined 30D demand is 2,320 units; with 9- and 6-day replenishment lead times, the merchant will lose roughly 110 + 95 = 205 sales over the gap (assuming demand continues at trend). At AOV 58and1.4items/order,thatisroughly58 and 1.4 items / order, that is roughly 5,500 of unrealised revenue.
  3. BIOTIN at 22 units / 30D is tagged but not urgent. The card surfaces it (network-wide OOS, demand exists) but a 22-unit SKU is not a priority. Configure a higher demand threshold (e.g. 50 units / 30D) to filter this out and reduce alert noise.
  4. Q4 inflates this card structurally. This same brand’s 5 Dec 25 reading was 12 OOS SKUs (vs steady-state 2 to 4); Black Friday and Cyber Monday volume cleared three of their top-10 SKUs in 36 hours. Read peak readings in seasonal context; pre-stock 6 to 8 weeks ahead.
  5. The card is a leading indicator for Operational Health Score. OOS feeds the inverse-stockout-severity pulse; a climbing OOS count drops the composite within hours. The card is also a leading indicator for Pending Backlog, since OOS-held orders accumulate.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

OOS is the surface; ageing and demand work happens in supporting cards:

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in ShipBob Merchant Portal: ShipBob Merchant Portal → Inventory → Stock Status → Filter “Out of Stock”. The portal shows per-SKU per-DC inventory levels with on-hand, reserved, available quantities. The closest like-for-like view is “Out of Stock at All DCs”. Why our number may legitimately differ from ShipBob’s portal: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

ShipBob vs FBA, can I see OOS across both? Each 3PL holds its own inventory pool; the SKUs allocated to FBA are not visible to ShipBob and vice-versa. Track each separately. The all-up “what is OOS in my catalogue” view sits in Shopify’s product inventory, which usually reconciles from both sources but with sync lag. How does ShipBob choose which DC to deplete first? The router picks the closest DC with stock. If Chicago has 100 units and Cincinnati has 200, Chicago depletes first for Chicago-area orders. Different SKUs deplete at different rates per DC; the Inventory Heatmap shows the matrix. SLA-vs-carrier-tracking discrepancy, why does OOS make late deliveries worse? A SKU OOS at order-time creates an “on-hold” order. The order waits for restock (days to weeks), then ships when stock arrives. Customer expectation set in checkout was 3 to 5 days; actual delivery may be 14+ days. This guarantees an SLA miss and a likely return-and-cancel. Perfect-order rate vs OOS, what is the relationship? Stockouts at order-time block fulfilment, which fails on-time-shipping (one perfect-order leg) and often cascades to late delivery (another leg) and customer cancellation (a return-leg miss). OOS is the upstream cause; perfect-order is the downstream consequence. How do I plan for Q4 / BFCM peak using OOS? Three actions. (1) Pre-stock 6 to 8 weeks before BFCM with 1.5 to 2 times normal levels for top-20 SKUs. (2) Set the demand-threshold filter to surface only top-tier SKUs (e.g. >50 sales / 30D) during peak to focus attention. (3) Set the alert threshold tighter on top-3 SKUs and looser on long-tail to reduce alert fatigue. Multi-DC inventory split optimisation, how does OOS guide it? This card surfaces network-wide OOS; the Inventory Heatmap shows single-DC OOS. If one DC consistently runs dry on the same SKU while another holds excess, your inventory split is mis-aligned with customer geography. Re-allocate per the portal’s “Inventory Distribution” recommendations. Returns, do they immediately re-add to OOS? No, with lag. A return takes 2 to 7 days from received-at-DC to be inspected, re-stocked, and counted as available inventory. During that window, the SKU appears OOS even though physical units exist on the DC floor. Pivot to Return Processing Time. Why does ShipBob show OOS but Shopify still allows the order? Shopify’s “continue selling when out of stock” toggle. If enabled, customers can place orders for OOS SKUs; the order arrives at ShipBob and is held until restock. This is intentional for backorder workflows but causes confusion if not communicated to customers in checkout. Why does the count flicker between values within an hour? Inventory updates are webhook-driven; each shipment-out and return-in fires an event. A 200-SKU brand can see 5 to 15 inventory events per minute during peak. The count flickers as SKUs cross the OOS boundary back and forth on individual unit movements. The 30-minute rolling average is more useful for monitoring than the live count.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Out-of-Stock Products is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across ShipBob and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.