What is overstock?
Overstock is a product carrying more inventory than its current demand justifies — plenty of stock, not enough interest to move it at a healthy rate. It is the mirror image of scarcity risk: where scarcity risk is demand outrunning stock, overstock is stock outrunning demand.
How is overstock identified?
By reading inventory against live demand, the same two inputs scarcity risk uses, in the opposite combination. A product with healthy stock depth and weak or fading demand — a long stock runway and little velocity — is flagged as overstock. As with scarcity risk, neither half is enough alone: high stock with strong demand is just a well-supplied best-seller.
Why does overstock matter?
Because capital tied up in stock that is not moving has a cost, and the longer it sits the more it costs. Identifying overstock early lets merchandising prioritise the products that need a push — promotion, repricing, better placement, or messaging — to move them before they become markdown or dead stock.
How is overstock different from scarcity risk?
They are the two ends of the same demand-versus-stock model. Scarcity risk is low stock meeting live demand — act to avoid selling out. Overstock is high stock meeting weak demand — act to avoid sitting on it. Both come from comparing inventory with real demand; they just point in opposite directions, and call for opposite responses.
See overstock in the platform
The demand intelligence layer flags products whose stock is outrunning their demand.