Every retailer knows the frustration: an order should be in stock, but when the associate goes to pull it, it’s not there. Somewhere between the warehouse, the store and the POS, inventory visibility has broken down. 

In today’s omnichannel world, those gaps don’t just cost sales—they cost trust. And trust is a customer-experience mandate. 

The Cost of Inaccuracy

“Every time a customer can’t find an item or an order gets canceled because it wasn’t actually in stock, that’s an experience hit,” said TRG Enterprise Account Executive Ami Stephens. “It’s not just lost revenue—it’s trust you have to earn back. And that’s not easy.” 

Director of Innovation JW Franz says inventory blind spots are behind many of retail’s most stubborn issues.  

“Failed BOPIS orders, endless aisle gaps, markdowns—it all comes down to not having real-time visibility,” he explained. “You really can’t run modern retail on yesterday’s data.” 

According to Adam Jatich, TRG’s Director of Retail & Hospitality Solutions, many of his conversations with enterprise retailers begin with this basic frustration.  

“They’ve probably already started investing in omnichannel, but they’re still missing many of the basics,” he said. “They’ll tell us, ‘We can’t fulfill what we promise.’ And that’s where inventory becomes a customer-experience problem, not just an operational concern.” 

When the Tools Don’t Keep Up

For decades, retailers have relied on some combination barcodes, manual counts and nightly batch updates to keep track of their inventory. But these tools are clearly starting to show their age. 

“Barcodes work, but they’re only as good as the last scan,” said Franz. “They definitely can’t tell you where an item is right now, only where it was a few hours ago. So, something gets moved or misplaced, but the system still thinks it’s available. And there’s the problem.” 

And over time, even the smallest inaccuracies start ripple through operations. 

 “A one percent error might not sound like much, but when you’re talking about millions of SKUs, that’s a huge number of disappointed customers,” said Stephens. “That’s why the retailers who are winning are finding new ways to get 100 percent visibility, 100 percent of the time.” 

Seeing What’s Really There 

This is where modern technologies like RFID are changing the equation. By giving every item its own digital identity, RFID enables near real-time visibility across stores, warehouses and distribution centers. 

“The real game-changer for inventory control is serialization,” Franz said. “With RFID, you don’t just know a product exists—you know exactly where it is and how it’s moving. That changes how you think about fulfillment, replenishment and customer promises.” 

Stephens says she’s seeing attitudes shift quickly in her time working with retailers.  

“RFID isn’t experimental anymore,” she said. “It’s quickly becoming table stakes for retailers who want accurate, actionable data.” 

The Foundation for Retail Innovation  

According to Jatich, most inventory modernization projects start small—much like POS and checkout transformations.  

“A retailer might come to us for a simple, specific system upgrade,” he said. “But once they see how much visibility improves, they can start thinking bigger: how can we connect inventory to payments, to loss prevention, to everything?” 

That shift—from point solutions to connected systems—is what will separate retailer leaders from the rest of the pack going forward. 

“Inventory control is the connective tissue,” explained Franz. “It’s what ties together operations, sales and experience. When you connect all the dots you start to see a store the way you want the customer to see it—a single, intelligent environment.” 

Like everything else in retail, it always comes back to the shopper for Stephens. 

“When the data’s right, the associate can find the item faster, fulfill the order correctly and spend more time helping customers,” she said. “That’s what makes truly great customer experiences possible.” 

Looking Ahead  

The message from experts is clear: inventory accuracy isn’t just an operational goal—it’s a customer-experience imperative. 

We expect this issue to be center stage in 2026 as retailers look for ways to bridge legacy systems with modern tools, creating a single, reliable view of what’s in stock—everywhere, all the time. 

And TRG will be there, helping retailers see and serve their products better than ever before. 

Learn more about TRG's Retail Services: https://www.trgsolutions.com/solutions/retail-technology-solutions