Improve product availability by taking better control of your supply

May 8, 2026 • 7 min

Planning for supply chain disruptions is no longer a matter of “if” — it’s “when.” Logistical, natural, and socio-political interruptions are inevitable as the global supply chain becomes more complex by the day, putting retailers’ ability to maintain product availability under threat.

Take a mid-spring strawberry shortage. Weather-related crop damage prevents a supplier from delivering as planned, causing stores to run short just as demand peaks. Whether that scenario becomes a manageable setback or a costly availability failure comes down to the planning processes and technology they had in place long before the call came in.

Retailers seeking to improve product availability despite constant volatility rely on a combination of smart planning strategies. But putting those practices swiftly into action requires automated, AI-driven planning that can simulate the impact, find alternatives, and replan before customers feel the shortfall.

The real cost of poor product availability

The cost of making the wrong decision is very real. According to the RELEX State of Supply Chain 2026 report, 86% of business leaders report material impact from trade policy changes and on-shelf availability and stockouts remain a top concern for 41% of retailers. Despite a 7-point jump year-over-year in businesses shifting toward deeper partnerships, the pressure on availability isn’t letting up.

And consumers still have little patience: the 2025 edition of the report identified that 41% said they’d switch brands after an out-of-stock experience, and 19% would give up searching entirely if a product isn’t found immediately.

For retailers, availability is a direct driver of revenue, customer loyalty, and competitive position. Every stockout is a lost sale — and, increasingly, a lost customer.

4 strategies that protect product availability when supply becomes unpredictable

With ongoing supply constraints and disruptions, retailers must rethink their inventory management and procurement approaches, embracing strategies that improve flexibility, resilience, and efficiency.

Diversify your supplier base

Many retailers continue to grapple with inventory scarcity due to rigid sourcing strategies. To better manage adversity, retailers are diversifying their supplier base by reducing reliance on long-lead-time purchasing and on over-dependence on a single supplier or sourcing region. Diverse supplier agreements provide greater resilience when upstream shortfalls occur, regulations change, or other disruptions happen. Even in the absence of disruption, more flexible sourcing can still improve margins.

Improve collaborative relationships with suppliers

Strong supplier partnerships pay off most when inventory is tight. Retailers that foster collaborative relationships with vendors benefit from better visibility and timely stock delivery. Proactively sharing demand forecasts upstream and early warnings into stock availability downstream contributes to more reliable service levels and operational efficiency.

Be flexible to changing material flows

Adapting material flows helps retailers navigate supply disruptions and imbalances. Quick changes in delivery methods, such as cross-docking, internal DC transfers, or direct supplier-to-store deliveries, can help mitigate bottlenecks and keep operations moving when standard routes are blocked.

Protect your highest-value stores and products

Retailers must accept that they cannot save every sale during severe disruptions. Calculating additional impacts on availability as early as possible allows them to prioritize which stores and products to protect. As a result, retailers can decide which shortfalls they need to make up for with alternative suppliers.

How AI-powered planning improves product availability when it matters most

To execute these practices effectively, central planning teams need the right toolkit, and especially the right planning system.

Collaboration improves responsiveness and resilience

An AI-powered planning system can help retailers collaborate with suppliers early, simulate potential impacts quickly, re-plan for shortages, and share updated demand to strengthen supply chain resilience. Enhanced vendor collaboration surfaces supply risks before they escalate.

A collaborative planning portal supports near-real-time communication and data sharing between vendors and key stakeholders. These capabilities are essential for improving responsiveness to supply chain changes or disruptions, effectively allowing retailers to use vendors as an extension of the planning team.

Think back to the strawberry shortage. The supplier can’t deliver as planned, a shortage is imminent, and stores face lost sales. This is where supply chain technology earns its value.

In the previous scenario, the vendor would use a collaborative portal to inform the retailer of a possible shortage at the first sign of an issue with the strawberries.

Their collaborative portal should allow the vendors to:

Add specific supply constraint limits.

Discuss closure dates and order blocks.

Comment on how much they can provide, when, and where.

Together, the retailer and their vendor could review the projected demand for the affected period and compare the current plans and capacities. he projected demand for the affected period and compare the current plans and capacities.

***Fig. 1.*** *Collaborative planning provides a view of demand and mitigates supply disruptions proactively by working with suppliers.*

Scenario testing reveals the impact before customers feel it

The most important next step is to assess the impact of any upstream issues on customers. A planning platform capable of simulating the effect of scarcity/surplus of supply on stockholding, and ultimately sales, is essential in achieving this.

This is where adaptive safety stock comes in. Rather than holding a fixed buffer, the system recalculates safety stock levels daily based on the latest forecast, so if a shortage is expected to run for several weeks, stock protection adjusts automatically without a planner having to intervene each time.

This is a two-way process with two-way benefits:

Upstream → Downstream. The near-term reality of upstream supply is simulated against downstream demand.

Downstream → Upstream. Downstream under/over fulfilment leads to a change in future-term upstream demand.

In the strawberry shortage scenario, a retailer should determine the optimal scarcity allocation to stores, simulate the number of sales affected, and assess whether the size of that impact warrants additional action.

***Fig. 2.*** *When supply constraints aren’t considered, a retailer might have an unrealistic expectation of inventory.*

Replanning limits lost sales when disruption strikes

If disruption is severe, businesses should take action to minimize losses. A sound planning system can help here in a few ways:

Automatically responding to the bullwhip effect

Previously simulated downstream scarcities are built into future upstream order volumes. If the supply disruption has eaten into the presentation or buffer stock, that stock needs to be replenished in subsequent order opportunities. An automated replenishment system will respond immediately (within the confines of delivery schedules) as soon as the supply constraint is modelled.

This is what adaptive order parameters do in practice: rather than applying static ordering rules, the system continuously adjusts order quantities, frequencies, and safety stock levels based on current supply and demand data – automating what would otherwise require manual replanning.

Seeking alternative supply

Sometimes, arranging alternative sourcing can reduce the immediate loss of sales. Modern planning systems allow purchasing users to indicate supplier preferencing, quotas, and even simultaneous split agreements. Users can instruct the system to switch suppliers, or if these agreements are up to date with the supply constraints, the system can switch supply automatically.

Model future order volumes

Realistically projected future order volumes must reflect any containerization or minimum/maximum limits enforced by suppliers, enabling them to adequately prepare before placing orders.

In the strawberry example, the system may have identified alternative growers and calculated the number of additional containers/pallets needed to address the temporary shortfall before reverting to business as usual with the permanent supplier.

***Fig. 3.*** *Multi-supplier replenishment enables optimal selection of the best supplier when considering factors such as complex supplier contracts, time-phased changes, and varying delivery schedules.*

Sharing forecasts builds resilience against future disruption

Then, the process comes back full circle.

Retailers should share updated order forecasts with suppliers to reduce the likelihood of future disruptions.

The strawberry vendor can rely on consistent, early volume projections (outside of lead time), allowing them to build their own contingency/buffer provisions, leading to a more robust supply chain.

The planning makes all the difference

Supply constraints aren’t going away, but the gap between a disruption and a lost sale doesn’t have to be inevitable. Retailers who connect supplier collaboration, scenario planning, and automated replenishment in one platform can model the impact, find alternatives, and replan before customers feel the shortfall. And that’s what RELEX is built to do: give retail planning teams the visibility and control to protect availability when it matters most.

Learn how to achieve effective supply chain collaboration

Written by

Sean Wilson

Head of Product, Planning

Sean Wilson is Head of Product, Planning at RELEX Solutions. He has 15 years of experience in supply chain planning and optimization, including a previous R&D analyst role at multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco.