Out of Stocks are Eating 65% of Your Losses

Retailers have talked about inventory distortion for years. This week's Retail Reality Check looks at five retailers who are actually doing something about it, deploying robots, computer vision, and AI-powered forecasting to close the gap between what's on the shelf and what the system thinks is on the shelf.

Host Claire is joined by Greg Buzek, President of IHL Group, to break down why the technology adoption curve is finally bending. HomeBase USA is rolling Simbe's Tally robot chain-wide after a pilot that cut pricing errors 92% and controllable out-of-stocks 58%. Heinen's is using Afresh to manage period-ending inventory across its fresh departments. Village Super Market piloted Focal Systems' computer vision tool and recovered $24,000 in unaccounted inventory in a single month. Lululemon and Minor Hotels round out the deep dive with AI and cloud-driven systems consolidation stories that show what happens once the inventory basics are handled.

Connect with IHL Group:

• Website: https://www.ihlservices.com

03:03 - Hook: out-of-stocks are eating 65% of your losses

03:42 - Webinar callout: When Agents Shop, Inventory Cannot Lie

04:04 - Greg Buzek joins to discuss what's driving the shift from talk to action

04:27 - The pattern behind the shift: robots, computer vision, and AI-powered tools stacked together

05:04 - HomeBase USA deploys Simbe's Tally robot chain-wide

05:40 - Heinen's rolls out Afresh for period-ending inventory across fresh departments

06:41 - Village Super Market pilots Focal Systems computer vision, recovers $24,0000

7:16 - Lululemon scales AI across marketing, customer service, and supply chain

07:45 - Minor Hotels unifies systems on Oracle Cloud across 106 properties

08:51 - Lightning round begins: 12 more stories in under 4 minutes

12:25 - Closing question and where to find more research

IHL Research Cited:

• 2026 Inventory Distortion Study (https://www.ihlservices.com/product/inventory-distortion-study-2026/) — source of the 65.6% out-of-stock distortion figure

• Shelf Intelligence Report (https://www.ihlservices.com/product/shelf-intelligence-report-rebuilding-retail-relationships-through-automation/) — source of the 72%/17% robot adoption gap

• Retail's Hidden Advantage: RFID & Computer Vision (https://www.ihlservices.com/product/rfid-computer-vision/) — source of the Walmart shelf-availability and out-of-stock figures

• Intelligent Commerce: Integrating AI, Analytics and Unified Systems (https://www.ihlservices.com/product/intelligent-commerce-integrating-ai-analytics-and-unified-systems/) — source of the 19% task-automation and 92% profit-growth figures

Webinar Replay:

• When Agents Shop: Inventory Cannot Lie (https://www.ihlservices.com/news/analyst-corner/2026/08/ondemand-when-agents-shop-inventory-cannot-lie/)

Companies & Tools Discussed: Simbe (Tally robot), Afresh, Focal Systems (Top Stock), Auror, Blue Yonder, Flooid, THG Fulfil / AutoStore, Ibotta, Google Cloud Gemini Enterprise, iA, Vibe.co, Oracle OPERA Cloud.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:About This Episode's Analyst: Greg BuzekEpisode TimestampsResources Mentioned in This Episode