A new SaaS insights solution from Instacart Enterprise platform is giving CPGs a daily, store-level read on their product’s on-shelf availability across nearly 100,000 stores.
CPG brands have invested billions in building demand: media, innovation, promotions, and trade. But all of that investment hinges on one moment that has remained difficult to answer consistently at scale: Is the product actually on the shelf when a consumer reaches for it?
This carries a heavy price, as missing inventory triggers an instant chain reaction. Research from Harvard Business Review¹ highlights the impact of out-of-stock products on consumer behavior. With nearly two-thirds of consumers refusing to wait and abandoning the brand, every out-of-stock represents more than just immediate revenue loss; active market share is gifted to the competition at the very moment of purchase.
For CPGs, the challenge has never been recognizing the importance of on-shelf availability, it's been accessing timely, store-level visibility at scale. Historically, retail execution has relied on audits from a sample of stores, with findings modeled across broader networks and often arriving a week or more later, after the opportunity to act has passed.
One model, many signals
That's why Instacart Enterprise has built the Store Excellence Portal, a new SaaS insights solution that fuses millions of daily shelf signals into one single view of the shelf. That single view does two things at once for CPGs:
- It shows them what's on the shelf today, down to the store, UPC, and timestamp: what consumers couldn't find, where they switched, and how much revenue walked out the door.
- It forecasts what's about to happen: projecting a brand's not-found rate up to seven days out and flagging the stores and products heading toward a gap while there's still time to act.
“An empty shelf is one of the most stubborn problems a CPG faces- not only is it billions in lost sales a year, but it's also one of the biggest blind spots they have." said David Moran, General Manager, Insights Solutions, Instacart. "Store Excellence Portal changes that. It fuses shelf signals into connected insights brands can act on, so they can see what's on the shelf every day, where the gaps are, and what it's costing them."
Why Instacart can do this
The power of the Store Excellence Portal is the data foundation behind it, backed by the scale only Instacart has, approximately 600,000 Instacart Shoppers fulfilling orders for 26M+ annual consumers across 2,200+ retail banners and nearly 100,000 stores. That adds up to more than 10 million unique daily data points, delivering precise availability insights with unmatched depth, breadth, and speed:
Depth. Insights down to the store-level, the UPC, across both the time of day and day of week
Breadth. Coverage across nearly 100,000 stores and 2,200+ retail banners means it is real measurement
Speed. With refreshed daily data, teams act on what's happening
What you learn from Store Excellence Portal:
Store Excellence Portal is helping brands better understand what's happening on the shelf through the following features:
- Predicted Availability: A seven-day forecast of their not-found rate, flagging the stores and UPCs heading toward a gap.
Lost sales, in dollars. Estimated revenue impact down to the store, UPC, and retailer
Ranked store lists, refreshed daily. Every store is prioritized by lost-revenue potential, so finite field teams can be prioritized
Substitution and category benchmarks. See whether consumers switched to another product or a third party, and how you stack up against the category
Persistent-issue detection. Stores flagged for the same problem for several days running, separating systemic loss from one-off noise
Seasonal monitoring and history. Track availability through peak periods and compare against years of history
Daily alerts and custom exports. The biggest gaps are surfaced as they rise, by retailer, store, and UPC, and exportable into the exact story sales teams need to see
Taken together, that's what lets Sales build a stronger case for the shelf, Retail Execution prioritize and close gaps fast, and Insights teams quantify exactly what availability is costing the business.
Spot opportunities hiding on the shelf
On-shelf availability is where brand investment is won or lost. For the first time, CPG teams can see that moment clearly and act on it every day.
Learn more about Store Excellence Portal here or request a demo here to see what it uncovers for your brand.
Footnotes: All counts as of Q4 2025. ¹ Corsten, D. and Gruen, T. (2004) "Stock-Outs Cause Walkouts," Harvard Business Review.
