Eli5 How do grocery stores around the world afford to be fully/half stocked in a product 24/7 simultaneously even in small towns where not everything’s bought?
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If the product is a slow seller, you could be seeing literally the same product every time you go shopping. As in the store orders one case, puts it on the shelf, and it sits there for months. Can be the case for non-food items that aren’t bought all the time like toys, or seasonal items. Other times, the store gets a kickback from the vendor so the vendor pays a certain amount of money for the store to carry a product whether it moves or not. Sometimes the profits of other products are enough to cover the losses of another product.
Mostly though, stores will keep slow movers in stock and take the loss from shrinkage because it helps to maintain the image of a store that is fully stocked. If your store is poorly stocked, it can be perceived that your store is failing and is on its last legs. Perception is reality.
Chain stores are able to do this much better than independent stores because entire stores can be loss leaders and they will use the other stores to prop up one of these loss leaders. I used to work for a company where we had stores whose entire purpose was for experimenting new programs and stuff, and some of these required large upfront investments. This store was projected to lose money because of this, and other stores would make up the losses through profitable sales.
TL;DR: someone at the company is getting paid for it, or they make enough money elsewhere to justify the cost of it.
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