Pricing power is fading, but there's a growth lever most CPGs are overlooking: fixing the products shoppers can't find. Industry leaders reveal why OSA is the fastest path to profitable volume - and why waiting for perfection is the biggest mistake.
There is a quiet, yet important, resurgence of CPG brands refocusing on On-Shelf Availability (OSA) as a core growth lever.
After several years dominated by pricing actions, supply disruption, and inflation-driven margin recovery, the reality is setting in: you can’t grow what shoppers can’t buy. As pricing power softens, private label competition intensifies, and retailers scrutinize brand execution more closely, OSA is re-emerging as one of the most immediate and controllable drivers of both revenue and profit.
Leading CPGs are recognizing that product availability isn’t just an operational metric - it’s a commercial one. Lost sales due to out-of-stocks quietly erode topline growth, weaken promotion effectiveness, and undermine every dollar invested in pricing, trade, and marketing. Improving OSA has become one of the most effective paths to unlocking profitable volume without asking the shopper to pay more.
Industry research reinforces this shift. Brands that consistently outperform on product availability tend to grow both revenue and profit at higher rates than peers - simply because demand that exists actually converts at shelf.
We recently hosted an executive dinner in NYC with a group of CPG commercial leaders to explore how some of these brands are tackling OSA.
What follows is a synthesis of their insights - real-world experiences and practical lessons from leaders who are driving improvements in product availability everyday.
Let’s start with the basics. When people talk about OSA, what do they often get wrong?
Many people think of OSA as only a store-level execution problem or a KPI that lives with retail or supply chain teams. In reality, OSA is an enterprise issue.
It sits at the intersection of demand planning, replenishment, merchandising, promotion, and in-store execution. Improving OSA requires alignment across people, processes, and tools - and often a shift in how the organization collaborates internally and with retailers. When OSA is treated as “someone else’s problem,” it rarely improves in a sustainable way.
Why is OSA such an important focus for CPGs right now?
Because it’s one of the few levers that directly converts existing demand into revenue.
When inflation was high, pricing masked availability issues. Today, with shoppers more price-sensitive and retailers less tolerant of poor execution, product availability gaps are much more visible - and much more costly. Every out-of-stock during a promotion, feature, or seasonal moment represents lost sales that usually don’t come back.
Many CPG commercial leaders I know believe improving OSA offers the greatest source of near-term value because it drives growth without relying on additional pricing or incremental trade spend.
Some teams treat OSA as a system or report. You’re suggesting it’s much broader than that. Why?
Because metrics don’t fix problems - behavior does.
For example, many teams track out-of-stocks, but fewer act on the root causes. Improving OSA may require changing forecasting assumptions, redefining service-level targets, retraining teams on how to interpret demand signals, or adjusting how success is measured.
In some cases, sales teams are incentivized on volume shipped rather than product availability achieved. Supply chain teams may optimize for fill rate while stores struggle with execution. Fixing OSA often means addressing these misalignments and guiding the organization through a real change curve.
How should brands think about promotions and OSA together?
Promotions are one of the fastest ways to expose OSA weaknesses.
Too often, promotional plans are built without fully accounting for supply readiness, store execution risk, or replenishment constraints. The result is familiar: strong demand signals, empty shelves, and disappointing results.
Teams are now starting to link promotion planning more tightly with replenishment and product availability monitoring - testing, learning, and adjusting quickly when execution falls short. When promotions and OSA are managed together, both trade effectiveness and shopper experience improve.
Assortment rationalization is back in focus. How does that impact OSA?
Assortment complexity is one of the biggest hidden enemies of availability.
A large portion of SKUs often contribute minimal profit while creating disproportionate operational strain. Excessive assortment increases forecasting error, slows replenishment, and raises the likelihood of store-level execution issues.
CPGs that actively reduce low-velocity, low-profit SKUs while protecting high-velocity items often see OSA improve as a byproduct, alongside cost and margin benefits.
What best practices help brands actually make progress on OSA?
First, set clear priorities. You don’t need to fix everything at once. Identify the most painful product availability issues and focus there.
Second, make OSA measurement simple and visible. When teams clearly understand how OSA is measured - and how their actions influence it - behavior changes faster.
And finally, celebrate wins. Product availability improvements can feel incremental, but those wins build momentum and reinforce the right habits across the team.
What’s the biggest mistake you see team leaders make when it comes to OSA?
Waiting.
Many teams believe OSA improvement requires massive systems or perfect data. It doesn’t. Progress can start with small changes, clearer accountability, and better collaboration.
The biggest risk isn’t imperfect execution - it’s inaction. Every day of poor product availability is lost revenue that can’t be recovered.
