Keep Running Out of Stock? The Vet Waiting Room Message

2026-10-15

Mara is holding a cat carrier on her knees when her phone buzzes.

It is 10:40 on a Thursday. The vet's waiting room smells of disinfectant and wet dog. The cat, Pilchard, is silent and offended in his box. Mara is only half watching the door to the treatment room, because the notification on her screen says: Hi, is the oat and honey soap coming back? This is the third time I've tried to order it.

Third time.

She feels it in her stomach first, before she thinks anything. Then the thoughts arrive in their usual order. I thought I had a few left. I'm sure I had a few left. When did I last count?

The shelf in the spare room

Mara makes soap and balms in a spare room that stopped being a spare room a long time ago. Two shelves of finished stock. A crate of jars. A notebook that began as a stock list and is now mostly a record of things she meant to do.

She sells online and at the odd weekend fair. Her bestsellers go quickly, and that is the lovely part. It is also the problem. They go quickly, and she finds out when someone tells her.

A customer writes. Or an order comes in and she goes to pick it and finds an empty gap on the shelf, the dust outline of where the soaps used to sit. Then she does what she always does. She refunds, apologises, writes back soon! on the shop page, and promises herself she will keep better track.

She has promised it many times.

What it costs when nobody sees it

The refund is the small cost. The bigger one is quieter.

It is the person who tried three times and now buys from someone else. It is the batch she brews in a rush because she has run out, rather than when she has planned for it. It is the supplier call where she asks for the oils "as soon as possible" and hears the pause that means that will cost you more.

It is also the small, private feeling of not being a proper business. Proper businesses know what is on their shelves. Mara knows roughly. Roughly feels fine until a message like this one arrives in a room full of strangers and sick animals.

She types a reply with her thumb. So sorry, I'm making more soon! Then she deletes soon, because she doesn't know whether it's true.

The nurse says "Pilchard?"

The cat is fine. A small thing, a tablet, a look of deep betrayal. Mara pays at the desk, and while the receptionist finds the receipt, she notices the clipboard on the counter. It has a tidy list of what the practice has in stock, with a line beside each item for when to reorder.

It is nothing special. A list, and next to each item a number someone decided on once, so that nobody had to remember.

She looks at it longer than is polite.

The vet's office does not find out it is out of cat tablets when a cat needs one. It knows beforehand. The clipboard tells it.

On the walk back to the car, with the carrier banging gently against her leg, the thought comes through clearly for the first time. I don't actually have a memory problem. I have no place where the answer lives.

She had always assumed that being good at this meant keeping every number in her head. It had never occurred to her that she was allowed not to.

A different Monday

Picture that same business a few weeks on.

It is Monday morning, 8:30. Mara has a coffee and the window is open a crack. She opens one file and looks at it for a few minutes. Most of it is calm. One line has changed colour, the oat and honey soap, and it is telling her what she half knew: this one is getting low, and it's time to think about the next batch while there is still plenty on the shelf.

She orders oils on a Monday, without hurry, rather than on a Friday in a panic. She makes the batch on Wednesday. When the weekend fair comes, the table is full.

No one writes to ask if the soap is coming back, because it never really left.

There is a small side effect she didn't expect. She stops dreading her inbox. The notification sound stops meaning what have I got wrong now? and goes back to meaning someone wants something I made.

Nothing about the work has become glamorous. The difference is that the shelf no longer surprises her.

If this is your shelf

Maybe you don't make soap. Maybe you sell prints, candles, coffee, secondhand books, or spare parts for old bicycles. The details change and the feeling doesn't: the quiet jolt when a customer tells you something about your own stock that you should have known first.

If that is you, it is not a character flaw. Most small shops start by keeping stock in their heads, because it works until it doesn't. It just helps to have somewhere the answer lives.

We made Never Sold Out by Surprise – Inventory & Reorder Tracker for that moment. It is an Excel workbook with a sample version to look at and a blank template to make your own, plus a short PDF guide. It shows when things are running low, what your stock is worth, and a simple overview of the whole shelf. There is no subscription, and there's a 30-day money-back promise: if it doesn't help, you get a full refund, no questions.

It was made with AI, checked automatically, and refined by real use. It organises your stock. The decisions about what to make and when stay with you.

If you'd like to take a look, it's here: Never Sold Out by Surprise – Inventory & Reorder Tracker

Pilchard, for the record, forgave everyone by teatime.

An illustrative story, written with AI assistance.