Nike store availability study

FlowAIO recorded 886,825 Nike availability-status changes for 1,254 shoe styles at 255 Nike-owned US stores. I compared Factory, Clearance, and full-price stores.

Solo side project · Data collected automatically, March 9–August 20, 2026

Nike’s in-store availability API returns OOS, LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH for each store, shoe, and size. I built FlowAIO, which polled that API and recorded changes over time. These are Nike-returned availability statuses, not sales, pair counts, warehouse records, or verified physical restocks.

Findings

  • Factory stores: 41.4% of observed OOS-to-in-stock transitions jumped directly to MEDIUM or HIGH, compared with 15.5% at full-price and Community stores. Nike does not publish the pair-count thresholds behind those labels.
  • Clearance stores: the median store carried two available sizes for each of the 183 shoe styles compared across store formats; Factory and full-price stores each carried four.
  • Full-price sell-through: two random 30-style samples reversed the result from the twelve busiest styles, so the data did not support a faster-sell-through claim.

OOS-to-in-stock transitions per move to a lower status

April 15–August 20, 2026. A value of 1.08 means 108 observed OOS-to-in-stock transitions per 100 moves to a lower status.

More OOS-to-in-stock transitions (> 1.0)More moves to a lower status (< 1.0)
Clearance (29 stores)1.12House of Innovation (1, NYC)1.11Factory (145 stores)1.08Company Store (2)1.05Full-price / Community (77)0.84Jordan World of Flight (1, Philadelphia)0.761.0
Factory stores recorded 108 OOS-to-in-stock transitions per 100 moves to a lower status; full-price and Community stores recorded 84.

Share of OOS-to-in-stock transitions that jump above LOW

The share moving from OOS directly to MEDIUM or HIGH rather than LOW. 400,483 transitions across the three plotted formats, April 15–August 20.

0%10%20%30%40%50%Factory (145 stores)41.4%Clearance (29 stores)20.0%Full-price / Community (77)15.5%
Factory stores moved from OOS directly to MEDIUM or HIGH in 41.4% of observed transitions, versus 15.5% at full-price and Community stores.

Median in-stock sizes for one shoe style at one store

The gray dot includes every style each group carries. The red dot includes only the 183 styles found in both outlet and standard full-price stores.

All shoe styles183 styles carried by both groups
02468Standard full-price7 → 4Factory4 · unchangedClearance2 · unchanged
For the same 183 styles, full-price and Factory stores each had a median of four available sizes; Clearance had two.

Hours from OOS-to-in-stock to the next lower status

Transitions with no later drop before August 20 remain in the estimate. The method stays the same while the selected shoe styles change.

Outlet (Factory + Clearance)Standard full-price Nike Store
0h100h200h300h400hTop 12 SKUs by volume152,211 events413h145hnon-random sampleRandom sample A30 SKUs · 42,906 events293h363hRandom sample B30 SKUs · 45,325 events167h370h
The result reverses under both random samples, so the full-price sell-through estimate is not robust to product selection.

Limits

Status changes may reflect sales, returns, transfers, recounts, shrink, or API updates. The 1,254 monitored styles are not Nike’s full catalogue, a 36-ZIP store search overrepresents outlets, and the change history has no opening balance. The comparisons describe observed API statuses, not units sold or warehouse movement.