[muskox2]

Yep. The inventory drift from wrong shipments and damaged items varies from store to store, but in the store I work at inventory numbers are often off by 5-10%. And much higher numbers aren't unheard of. Most stores completely re-count every item they have quarterly.

Inventory management is something that's easy in theory, and very very hard in practice.

[cmckn]

That makes total sense -- I guess that's one of the things the Amazon Go stores are trying to solve.

[chasd00]

Totally agree, I work on the COVID vaccine distribution/administration for one state in the US. Inventory tracking is very hard, not technically so much as operationally. For example, healthcare workers didn't go to school to learn how to maintain inventory levels, they went to school to deliver healthcare. Our systems have to constantly remind and nag the users to keep reported inventory at least close to reality.