New research shows stock data wrong more often than right

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO - 0900 UK TIME, 10TH NOVEMBER 2026

Scandit warns retailers face 'shadow stores' that can derail AI, and a £23m labour workaround per retailer because of inaccurate inventory data

Zurich, Switzerland, 10th November 2026 - Scandit, the leader in smart data capture powered by vision AI, today released the results of global research revealing that stock information matches what store associates find on the shelf just 46% of the time. This has led to just 8% of associates trusting store data completely - a figure that falls to 3% in the UK.

Scandit warns that this acute 'Store Truth Gap' between what the system says and what is actually in store, not only damages the customer experience, but also poses a critical threat to the successful deployment of AI technologies.

"Inaccurate inventory data means compromised decisions," said Samuel Mueller, CEO and co-founder of Scandit. "This threatens return on investment, because AI cannot operate on flawed records."

Frustrated fixes and shadow stores

The research shows that this gap is currently absorbed by labour. UK associates estimate they could each reclaim 3.96 hours a week (over five working weeks a year), if they had data they could trust. For a retailer employing 10,000 store associates, that equates to a £23 million per year labour cost.

When the system is wrong, UK associates are frustrated in their attempts to rectify the situation: only 41% correct records themselves (compared to a global average of 49%) and just 35% report they raise stock adjustments (compared to a global figure of 44%).

Amongst those UK associates who do take action, 36% bypass the official system entirely, and 58% use at least one informal method, including paper notes, team chats, personal phone photos and apps, or memory.

The result is a 'shadow store' in which vital information exists outside the records upon which head office, dashboards and AI systems rely. Consequently, Scandit has also warned that retailers racing to deploy AI are running ahead of the data reality inside stores.

"Retailers do not have an AI adoption problem, as much as a store truth problem," said Samuel Mueller, CEO and co-founder of Scandit. "Associates are spending valuable time repairing these gaps, yet much of that work disappears into unofficial tracking systems. Before retailers ask AI to make more decisions based on inaccurate store data, they need a shared, accurate view of what is actually happening on the shelf and across their stores."

The associate trust mountain

Scandit has also warned that rectifying this situation is a steep mountain to climb as associates' trust in stock data is not linear. The survey highlights such trust stays low until the data is consistently very good.

Globally, only one in four associates say store data is accurate more than 70% of the time. Among associates who put accuracy up to 50%, approximately a quarter report high trust, but that figure barely moves until accuracy passes 70%, when it rises sharply.

"This is not a gradual improvement problem," said Andrew Smith, Managing Partner, and co-founder of ThinkUncommon and a RETHINK Retail Top Expert since 2021. "Moving stock accuracy from 46% to 60% may look like progress in a board report and still change nothing on the floor. Trust only begins to move once accuracy clears 70%, and until then associates do what sensible people do: they check the shelf themselves and either correct the system or just do what they need to do to help the customer in front of them."

Going beyond productivity to solve the problem

The consequences of this lack of trust extend into the customer experience. Internationally, associates report spending an average of 4.1 hours each week handling customer questions that store technology should be able to answer and are asked to physically check whether an item is in stock 5.85 times a week on average.

In the UK, associates spend less time answering customer questions (2.8 hours per week) but face greater demands to physically check items are in stock, with an average of almost 7 times per week and one in three (33%) saying they make such checks more than ten times a week.

Asked what would make inventory management workflows easier, UK associates responded with:

• "Better inventory system accuracy to reduce stock discrepancies on the shop floor"
• "Stock to be updated when sold/scanned at tills"
• "More communication from department leaders about what we have in stock (particularly at start of my shift)"
• "I'd like to make sure people who are doing stock take actually care about getting the numbers right. When they do a bad job, it causes so many issues"

Read The Store Truth Gap report here.

About the survey

Scandit commissioned Sapio Research to survey 2,200 store associates online in September 2026. All worked in physical stores for retailers with more than 1,000 employees across the U.S., Germany, UK, France, Italy, Canada, and Poland. The research covered grocery, mass merchant and department store, hypermarket and supercenter, DIY and home improvement, convenience, and drugstore and pharmacy formats.

About Scandit

Scandit is the leader in smart data capture, powered by vision AI, giving superpowers to workers, customers, and businesses by providing actionable insights and automating end-to-end processes. Its Smart Data Capture platform enables smart devices, such as smartphones, handheld computers, drones, digital eyewear, robots, and fixed cameras to interact with physical items by capturing data from barcodes, text, IDs, and objects with unmatched speed, accuracy, and intelligence.

Scandit enables innovation that delivers significant cost savings, increases employee retention and customer loyalty. The company partners with customers at every step with trials, solution design, integration, and customer success support included.

Visit scandit.com to learn why market leaders across retail, transport and logistics, healthcare, and manufacturing like Instacart, Carrefour, Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons, Levi Strauss & Co., Sephora, Lufthansa, and FedEx trust Scandit.