On-shelf availability (OSA) has been a major cause of concern to the leading Mexican convenience store company. Studies developed by the firm show that if a product is not available, the customer substitutes it 40% of the times or it becomes a lost sale. This has become an important issue to ressolve during the last years in which the company is experiencing an aggressive growth level. Improving OSA level would increase cash flow to finance growth.

The purpose of this work is to present a case study of how this major convenience store retailer tackled the OSA issue. This study is carried out in the national store network. The product families that contibuted the most to OSA are grocery items, wine and liquors and water items. After an exhaustive analysis two major causes were identified: obsolete inventory management systems and highly imprecise forecasting procedures.

The implementation of several initiatives is in process. However, results from pilot tests will be shown.