Out-of-stock featured products silently dropped page conversion by ~40%

Out-of-stock featured products silently dropped page conversion by ~40%

When your top recommendation goes out of stock or loses its Buy Box, the link still works but conversion collapses, and nothing in the dashboard flags it.

— In-stock period: 5.0% in-window conversion
— OOS / lost Buy Box: 3.0%
— Recovery after swap: back to ~4.8%

(n=3,600 clicks across a 3-week OOS event, single ASIN)

The link reported normal clicks the whole time, so the leak was invisible until conversion was segmented by date.

So what: Monitor Buy Box / availability on your top earners, not just clicks. A monthly availability check on your top 20 ASINs recovers the silent 40% conversion gap. Stale links are the most common invisible EPC drain.