From the little I know, it’s up to the department manager to check inventory and order. The Telxon shows the inventory in the store including what’s in the back room and what’s enroute.
Our store makes a determined effort to keep shelves stocked. Food is the normal priority for the night shift. The managers on the shift often take an aisle and stock. That might be an easy aisle like cereal. But I have seen a manager do paper and chemical. Paper is easy and goes fast. Chemical usually has at least two pallets of boxed soap stacked over six feet high. That will give you a work out.
I used to drive a truck and one shipping company I used to pick up freight at hit the nail on the head.
I was in the Dispatch Office getting paperwork for my load and the supervisor heard a dispatcher saying to a customer on the phone "sorry I have no trailers available for your load". He blew a gasket and said "The next time you tell me and we'll buy a trailer never ever loose a load for that reason". That was a shipping company in Philly a large shipping company. He understood his commodity which was the trucking service depended on steady sales and them always being there. To apply this same principle to Walmart if it's not on the shelves it's a lost sale. It's loss of profits and that is what the Doofs at Bentonville can't seem to grasp.
They go out of their way to make certain rack 123443 in store # 0000 is in check out lane 5 {because check out line racks and other spaces are rented to vendor companies} but corp doesn't pay attention to inventory.
Unfortunately they seem to give the store managers very little say in these matters because I've talked to my local one several times.
Walmart Corp VP's believe it or not used to return calls. Remember the corralling and the real shrill high pitched alarms that used to be in Electronics years ago? Everytime someone went in or out the only entrance the blasted thing went off for an eternity if someone was standing at the sensor. I'm hypersensitive to such noise and wrote a letter to Bentonville. The VP in Bentonville in charge of Loss Prevention at that time {back when Sam was alive} called me and we talked about 5 minutes. Within six months they were gone in most stores.
Today if you call or write a letter or use online Contact Us to get someone at Corp you'll instead get a local associate who has absolutely no power or say to address anything. When I said it isn't the Walmart Sam built that's what I meant.
Nothing irks a consumer more than such things as items mystically discontinued especially when still at other stores, food items over in the action aisle near Toys, & items not on shelves. Sales are how companies make profits. Don't have shelves stocked? Increase deliveries and if necessary the employees. Walmart lost most of my food purchases for such stunts as Great Value only products they tried to do and it never was quite the same after. My local has decent produce usually.
Once upon a time I knew I could come out ahead money wise and find most things doing grocery shopping there. Those days are gone. They take up an entire aisle of food for whatever holiday is coming up. They have to do that because years ago Corp decided to remove an entire shelf level store wide.