Andrew Erickson · Eleviam Profit Leak Series · August 25, 2026

My $418,000 mistake.

The profit leak that never sends you an invoice.

InventoryHero
© 2026 Andrew Erickson · InventoryHero. All rights reserved.
Educational content only, not financial or legal advice.
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Ten years ago

I started selling on Etsy and Amazon.

Andrew Erickson holding his first product, a wooden US map beer cap display

Two years later I crossed seven figures.

Still working a full time day job.

InventoryHero
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So I sat down

What is the number one key to keep growing?

  • ·Reviewed the whole year, product by product.
  • ·Expected to find a product or PPC problem.
  • ·Found something else entirely.
InventoryHero
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What the year actually looked like

I was out of stock for most of the year.

Not on everything. Just on the things that were working.

InventoryHero
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So I did the math

One product. One stockout.

Before
10 / day
Steady, for weeks.
Then
6 weeks
Out of stock. Zero units.
After
10 / day
Right back where it was.
So
420 units
That I was always going to sell, and never did.

420 units × $40 a unit = $16,800.

From one stockout. On one product. Then I ran that same math on every stockout, on every product, all year.

InventoryHero
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The gut punch

$418,000

In sales I had already earned, and simply did not have the inventory to collect.

Amazon never sent me an invoice for it.

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And that is only the part I could count

A stockout charges compound interest.

  • 01Organic rank you have to buy back.
  • 02Reviews you never got, on units you never shipped.
  • 03Repeat customers who found a competitor instead.
  • 04Ad spend relaunching a listing that was already winning.
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What happened next

I quit my day job that month.

The one fix
Forecasting
Not ads, not creative, not price. Knowing what to reorder and when.
Then
I grew it
Full time on the brand, with inventory finally under control.

Then I sold it. A seven figure exit.

InventoryHero
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After my second exit

I built the full supply chain tool I wish I had had that week.

So it does not happen to anyone else.

InventoryHero.ai
  • 01Forecasting that sees the stockout coming.
  • 02Reorder timing, by product, in plain English.
  • 03And the report I had to build by hand.
InventoryHero
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Now

Live demo.

The InventoryHero lost sales report: days out of stock, average daily sales, lost sales in dollars, and a sales history chart with the stockout windows shaded
InventoryHero
© 2026 Andrew Erickson · InventoryHero. All rights reserved. Educational content only, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. The $418,000 figure is the presenter's own historical estimate of unrealized sales, not a projection of results for any other seller.
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