A system and method for determining a specific location in a brick and mortar retail store from which an item purchased by a customer in the store was likely obtained, so as to enable maintenance of inventory at the location level within the store is provided. The system includes a central database in which information regarding product inventory for a brick and mortar store location is maintained, a point of sale client capable of obtaining a product identifier from items being purchased by a customer, and a product location mechanism that utilizes the product identifier obtained by the point of sale client for the items being purchased by the customer, and other information from the point of sale client and/or from within the database to determine the most likely location from which an item was obtained by the customer and decrement the inventory unit amount stored in the database for the location by the number of such items purchased.