Auto-swapping out-of-stock links recovered 14% of lost EPC

Auto-swapping out-of-stock links recovered 14% of lost EPC
Dead inventory is a silent EPC drain: the click lands on an unbuyable item and the 24h cookie burns on nothing. A site ran a daily availability check across 220 linked products. n=30 days.
— Pre-monitor: ~8% of links pointed to out-of-stock items at any time
— Those clicks converted at 0.9% vs 3.3% for in-stock
— After auto-swap to in-stock alternates: blended EPC +14%
The fix was a cron job, not new content.
So what: a click on an unbuyable product is a refund to Amazon. Monitor availability and swap dead links — it's pure recovered EPC at zero traffic cost.