Apparently shoplifting is one of the ways this can go wrong, at least for smaller items. A couple months ago I bought out the last of a specific type of hardware at Home Depot. A few weeks later I needed more, and the store website said they had plenty in stock. When I went in and couldn’t find it, the store worker told me that the system count is often off due to shoplifting. Unfortunately there’s apparently no way for them to know this without doing a cumbersome inventory check (which is apparently not done frequently) or when a customer asks for help and they can’t find it. I hated to be that customer but in that instance it was the only way to get them to reorder inventory. I took care to be polite about it though!
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