With the evolution of the large general retail sector in Morocco, out-of-stocks (OOS) have become one of the major problems retailers have to resolve in order to retain their existing customers and attract new ones. This is particularly because the rate of OOS could indeed be considered as a performance indicator when the products and services offered by the competing retailers are relatively the same.

This paper provides a frame of reference in relation to the concept of “stock-out” in addition to the information and communication technologies used to improve some of the processes involved in the retail supply chain. We then present the results of a field study, which we have conducted in the large retail sector in Morocco in order to identify the scope of use of such technologies with the aim of reducing OOS situations at the store level.