What is the gap between your records and your shelves costing you?

Inventory records drift from physical reality every day. The gap is invisible until it shows up as shrink, empty shelves, wasted hours, and spoiled product. This tool puts a yearly dollar figure on that gap, using conservative industry ranges you can adjust.

Your operation01

Number of stores

Average in-store merchandise sales per store, per week

In-store merchandise only. Do not include fuel sales.

Average foodservice / fresh sales per store, per week

Prepared food, dated and perishable items. Enter 0 if you have no fresh program.

Hours per week, per store, spent counting, reconciling, and locating product

Average hourly wage for that labor

02 / Industry assumptions (adjustable)

Shrink as a share of merchandise sales1.5%

Theft, miscounts, and unrecorded loss. Industry surveys commonly report retail shrink near 1.5 percent of sales, often higher in convenience.

Sales lost to out-of-stocks, as a share of merchandise sales3.0%

When an item is missing from the shelf but the customer does not substitute. This is the most variable input. The default is deliberately conservative.

Spoilage as a share of fresh / foodservice sales10%

Fresh product written off before sale. Varies widely with how tightly the fresh program is run.

Estimated annual cost03

Shrinktheft and miscounts

Lost salesout-of-stocks

Wasted laborcounting and reconciling

Spoilagefresh and dated product

Estimated annual cost of Inventory Truth Decay

This is the size of the problem, not a guaranteed savings figure.

Per store: $0

Recovery scenario, you set this 20%

$0 / year

Move the slider to model what recovering a portion of this lost value would be worth. Aethrealigence has not promised a recovery figure. This number is your own assumption.

The next step

That number is an estimate. We can measure the real one in your store.

A founding-partner assessment runs for 30 days in one area of one store, on a limited set of products. You receive a written report showing exactly where your inventory records drift from physical reality, and what that drift is worth. A modest setup fee covers the work, and it is credited back if you continue.

We are selecting a small number of founding partners now.

Your name

Store or company

Phone (optional)

Before publishing, replace the placeholder email address in the script below with your real inbox. If you want form submissions to go to a CRM or spreadsheet instead, connect the form to a handler such as Formspree or your own backend.

How this estimate is built

Each figure is your own operating input multiplied by a conservative, adjustable industry rate. Nothing here is hidden. If a number looks wrong for your store, change it.

Shrink. Merchandise sales multiplied by the shrink rate. Retail loss surveys commonly place shrink near 1.5 percent of sales, with convenience often running higher. Default set at the lower end.

Lost sales from out-of-stocks. Merchandise sales multiplied by the lost-sales rate. Long-running retail studies have found average on-shelf out-of-stock rates near 8 percent, with a meaningful share converting to permanently lost sales. The 3 percent default sits well below the often-cited figure because many customers substitute.

Wasted labor. Your reported hours multiplied by your reported wage, across 52 weeks. This is built entirely from your own numbers.

Spoilage. Fresh and foodservice sales multiplied by the spoilage rate. Fresh waste in convenience commonly runs into double digits as a share of fresh sales.

This calculator estimates the annual cost of the inventory accuracy problem. It does not estimate or guarantee what any product, including Aethrealigence, would recover. The recovery scenario is an assumption set by the operator. Figures are directional and intended to support a conversation, not to serve as a financial projection.

Some companies count shelves on a schedule. Aethrealigence maintains inventory truth across the store and corrects it continuously.