Retail Shortage Claims Triage: Your 30-Day Playbook
- The HRG Team
- Oct 8
- 2 min read
For many mid-market suppliers, shortages make up 40–70% of deduction volume. The fastest wins don’t come from analyzing everything—they come from triaging the few lanes, Distribution Centers (DCs), and SKUs that drive most of the pain.
Why shortage claims snowball:
Small pack/label mismatches compound at scale.
Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) timing differences vs. trailer arrival create “not received” flags.
Repack and split-ship decisions in peak weeks result in carton-level traceability loss.
Fictional example (clearly hypothetical): A household brand sees repeat shortages at two DCs. The investigation reveals that a change in label placement obscured the Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) on mixed pallets. Restoring the label location and adding a carton-count image at load cut shortages by half in three weeks.
The 30-Day Shortage Triage:
Days 1–3: Isolate the hotspots. Rank by retailer code, DC, lane, carrier, and SKU. Pareto's principle applies to the top 20% causing 80% of the dollars.
Days 4–10: Reconcile signals. Cross-walk ASN timestamps, PODs, BOLs, trailer seal logs, and carrier exceptions. Flag gaps.
Days 11–15: Physical proof. Add load-out photos (pallet face + SSCC), carton counts, and seal photos to shipments on hotspot lanes.
Days 16–20: Pack/label audit. Verify label placement, scannability, over-labeling, and case pack counts.
Days 21–25: Dispute kit templates. Pre-assemble claim-type folders with naming rules, so submissions take minutes, not hours.
Days 26–30: Feedback loop. Weekly win-rate review; lock fixes; expand to next hotspot.
Expected impact: Teams that focus on their top shortage clusters often see 15–30% reduction in shortage debits within one to two cycles, with higher dispute win rates where photo proof is standard.
Take Action: Book your call with an HRG expert. We’ll help you identify the weak spots and operationalize the quick wins.
