What Retail’s Best-Run Stores Still Can’t See

The growing disconnect between strategy and shelf-level execution

Retail has never moved faster or been more complex.

Leaders are navigating margin pressure, evolving shopper behavior, omnichannel complexity, and constant disruption. And in response, they’re investing: in supply chain platforms, POS modernization, e-commerce infrastructure, personalization engines, and AI-powered analytics.

But even at the most sophisticated, well-run organizations, one critical environment remains dangerously under-instrumented:

The store floor.

Despite representing nearly 80% of all retail sales, physical stores remain one of the least visible parts of the enterprise. Most retailers still can’t answer a basic question in real time: What’s actually happening on my shelves?

This isn’t just a technical blind spot. It’s a strategic one.

Three Challenges We Hear Every Week

At Simbe, we work with retailers across formats—from grocery and club to home improvement and farm supply. And while every business has its own nuances, the core challenges are surprisingly consistent:

Inventory visibility gaps

Retailers know what’s arriving and what’s selling—but the in-between is murky. Real-time shelf conditions are often tracked manually, leading to delays, inaccuracies, and missed sales. In-store inefficiencies contributed to a 20%+ increase in lost sales last year alone.

Labor shortages and turnover

Retail still has the highest quit rate of any U.S. industry. Even as retailers invest in associate training and tools, it remains difficult to retain talent and execute consistently across locations.

Intensifying margin pressure

Costs are up. Shopper expectations are rising. And every team is being asked to do more with less. Operating margins have continued to shrink across North America and Europe since 2024.

And all of this is happening in a more competitive market than ever, where shoppers have unlimited options and e-commerce giants continue to raise the bar on speed, accuracy, and personalization.

Retailers aren’t struggling because they aren’t trying. They’re struggling because they can’t see what’s going wrong in time to fix it.

The Last Information Desert

Retailers have poured billions into digital systems. But inside the store—the place with the most shopper touchpoints and the most opportunity to capture real-time insights—teams are still operating in the dark.

We call this retail’s last information desert.

Without real-time shelf intelligence:

• Store teams spend hours walking aisles, manually checking for gaps
• HQ teams base pricing & promotion decisions on outdated or incomplete data
• Online orders are fulfilled with substitutions or delays
• Suppliers lose confidence when planograms break down

This isn’t isolated. It touches everything:

• Revenue stalls when stockouts push shoppers to competitors
• Customer trust drops when online listings don’t match reality
• Vendor partnerships falter when compliance agreements aren’t met
• Margins erode as manual fixes stack up store by store

The disconnect between the shelf and systems is now the biggest blocker to growth, loyalty, and execution.

What This Costs—In Real Numbers

• 📉 1 in 5 desired items is unavailable when shoppers arrive
• 📦 50% of online orders are substituted or not found in store
• 🚫 66% of stockouts are due to items in-store—but untracked
• 💰 Retailers lose up to 5% of margin annually to poor store execution
• 🕒 Manual audits catch just 10% of pricing errors and are 25x less effective than automation
• 😞 Attrition has climbed from 75% to 95% since 2020, with repetitive manual work as a top reason for leaving

Even a mid-size grocery chain doing $5B annually could lose $250M each year to these invisible inefficiencies.

The Bottom Line

Retailers don’t need more data—they need the right data flowing in real time across the right teams and systems. And that starts with visibility.

Because what’s happening on the shelf isn’t just an operations issue. It’s a performance engine, a shopper experience signal, and a margin driver.

Without eyes on your shelves, we can’t see the path to run our business.

--> Next in the series: You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See—The Emotional Cost of Blind Spots

--> Download the report: The State of In-Store Retailing 2025

--> Request a demo