Items using non-seasonal forecasting methods (Recent Sales & Trends and Last Sales methods) can still see a spike in demand due to holidays. Inventory Planners takes in to account spikes in sales due to holidays in two ways:
1. Exclude sales for holidays for consecutive months.
Spikes in sales for the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend and the week before Christmas could cause the forecast for the following weeks and months to be overstated. For example, if 500 units of an item are purchased during Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend when the normal sales velocity is 100 units per month, then the forecasted demand for January could be too high.
The Excluded Sales section in Account > Settings > Forecast allows you to set which dates should be excluded from the forecast calculation. Actual sales will still be reported. This exclusion is only for the purposes of forecasting.
2. Apply seasonal increase for non-seasonal products for Black Friday and Christmas
Apply seasonal increase for non-seasonal products for Black Friday and Christmas: When this option is set, Inventory Planners will take in to account Holiday Sales seasons (Including Black Friday and Cyber Monday), for items that are non-seasonal.
We check the previous year sales in the months of November and December and if increases are detected, these are automatically applied to your future forecast for these times.
Using override forecasts?
If you set a forecast override, we shall not apply these increases automatically. This is to avoid a potential spike in sales forecasting.
If you make use of the Sales Increase percentages, we recommend disabling the option to automatically consider these Holiday seasons, in your settings:
Account > Settings > Forecast
