You Stock It; They Buy It

If a retailer fixes this problem by converting out-of-stocks into sales, he/she could increase same store sales by 3.7 percent, the study shows.

"Put another way," RIS reports, "the average retailer loses the equivalent of $3.19 for every transaction it makes either through lost sales of specific items or by creating a situation where shoppers purchase nothing in the store even though they came in to buy."

If the specialty soft goods segment could solve the out-of-stock problem, according to RIS, it could increase same store sales by 7.1 percent.

The study is available today on the RIS Web site.