What changes when your wholesaler takes seven days to deliver?

The wholesaler tells you the next delivery will take seven days. You update the expected arrival date and carry on.

Three days later, the shelf is empty.

Nothing unusual happened at the counter. Customers bought the usual quantities. The order was placed at the usual stock level. But that level was designed to cover a two-day wait.

When delivery takes longer, you need enough stock to cover the extra days before the order arrives. The first number to revisit is the stock level that triggers your order.

Consider a pharmacy that sells ten tablets of a particular product each day. It opens daily, has no outstanding reservations and orders when 30 usable tablets remain. All quantities in this example refer to the same product and strength.

With the old two-day delivery time, it expected to supply 20 tablets while waiting. Starting with 30 left ten tablets as a buffer when the delivery became available.

With a seven-day delivery time, it expects to supply 70 tablets while waiting. The same starting balance of 30 lasts only three days. That leaves four days of expected demand uncovered—40 tablets.

The extra waiting time accounts for the change:

Five additional days × ten tablets a day = 50 additional tablets needed to cover the longer wait.

Order earlier, then review how much to buy

If the buyer keeps the same ten-tablet buffer, the reorder point rises from 30 to 80 tablets.

At 80 tablets, the pharmacy has 70 to cover the expected seven-day wait and ten remaining as a buffer. This assumes delivery becomes usable after seven full days and demand follows the forecast.

That does not automatically mean every order must contain 50 extra tablets. The reorder point determines when to order. The order quantity also depends on how often you buy, available pack sizes, expected demand after delivery, shelf life and cash available.

A larger order placed after stock has already fallen to 30 still leaves the pharmacy waiting seven days. For the current shortage risk, the buyer would need to check whether an earlier delivery or an appropriate transfer is possible.

The ten-tablet buffer is simply an example. It covers one day at the assumed demand rate. Choosing a buffer for a real product requires considering how much demand and delivery times vary, how critical availability is, and the risk of expiry.

Your sales report may hide the demand you missed

Before changing the reorder point, check the daily rate you are using.

Suppose the report shows 140 tablets sold over 28 days. Divide sales by days, and the result is five tablets a day. At that rate, seven days of demand would be only 35 tablets.

But the product was unavailable for 14 of those days.

All 140 tablets sold during the other 14 days, averaging ten tablets per stocked day. Using that rate gives 70 tablets of expected demand during the seven-day wait.

The full-period average includes days when customers had no opportunity to buy the product. Treating those days as ordinary trading days can lead you to order too little again.

The stocked-day average also needs checking. Those days might include an unusually large order, a busy clinic session or customers returning after the shortage. Use it alongside recorded unfilled requests and comparable periods when the product was consistently available.

Count the whole wait

Ask the supplier what its delivery estimate actually covers. “Five days to dispatch” leaves transport and receiving time still to come.

For your reorder calculation, measure from placing the order until the goods have arrived, passed the required checks and become available for issue. Clarify whether the supplier means calendar days or working days.

Then match the demand estimate to that interval. A pharmacy open every day continues supplying customers over a weekend even if its wholesaler does not dispatch until Monday.

Your own recent orders can help. Compare order dates with the dates stock actually became available. If deliveries have ranged from four to nine days, a seven-day estimate deserves a different buffer discussion from a service that consistently delivers in seven.

Check what is already coming

Before sending a new order, look at open purchase orders.

Thirty tablets on the shelf with a confirmed delivery tomorrow is a different position from thirty tablets with the next delivery seven days away. Check the expected arrival date and any outstanding quantity, including partial deliveries.

Count usable stock consistently. Separate stock already committed to customers, and avoid counting the same incoming order twice. Where a batch may expire before it can cover the waiting period, review its availability by date.

A practical check before your next order

Choose one fast-moving product whose supplier has recently slowed down. Write down:

• The verified usable quantity available now.
• The daily demand estimate and the period used to calculate it.
• Any stockout days that affected that estimate.
• The expected date replenishment will become usable.
• Any confirmed incoming quantity and existing commitments.

For the example in this article, write “30 available; ten expected per day; seven days until delivery.” Those three facts reveal the immediate problem. Demand during the wait is 70 tablets, leaving a forecast gap of 40.

Once you have addressed that gap, update the future ordering instruction. With the illustrative ten-tablet buffer, it becomes:

“Review this product for reorder at 80 usable tablets while delivery takes seven days. Check outstanding orders before purchasing, and reassess the trigger when demand or delivery timing changes.”

On the next delivery, record how many tablets remained when the stock became usable. That observation will help you judge whether the revised trigger is working.