In today's market conditions, it is always necessary to find a balance between sales opportunities and the severity of competition as an integral part of business. Therefore, experts recommend that you closely contact the marketing department to forecast the sales plan. This way, you will be able to understand the mechanisms for determining the market segments in which the competitive struggle will take place. You also need to know that each niche is characterized by certain internal processes: growth, decline in sales, or their being at the same level. For a successful business, you need to not only know the direction of the trend, but also understand its cause. Only in this case will you be able to make the most accurate sales forecast.
Preparing for Sales Forecasting
Let's imagine a situation gcash database where sales are growing on the market. On the wave of such success, one cannot be too self-confident. It is better to try to determine the reasons for the growth. After all, it is always followed by a lull or even a decline. Perhaps distributors or regular customers make certain reserves of goods, and this explains the temporary increase in sales. More accurate sales forecasts can only be made when a specialist knows the state of the market niche, as well as reliable reasons for the changes taking place.
It may happen that you have created an accurate sales forecast based on real information and using modern forecasting methods, but the market situation and the environment inside the company may change, which will affect the forecast values.
The competitor's actions may be unpredictable. Perhaps he is preparing to release a new product that is much better, more qualitative and more perfect than yours. Or he is reducing prices or planning a special promotion for all his products. But the opposite situation is also possible, in which the competitor's products will have many negative reviews, or an event will occur that will remove his product from the market. It would seem that this is good news, but you need to react to it promptly and adjust the forecast. Otherwise, the sharply increased demand for your products may exhaust the stocks, and this will lead to dissatisfaction of the regular target audience.
, regulatory, or political spheres. For example, a company operates in the food industry, and a regulatory agency passes a regulation that limits sales of such products. Or, as a result of political events (elections, change of course, etc.), sales of your company's products will increase.
The most difficult moment in the process of forecasting the volume of sales of a product is the change in the structure of purchasing activity . It lies in the fact that the next generation of potential customers may stop buying products in the form in which they are currently in good demand among regular consumers, or will buy, but in much smaller quantities. In this case, the obtained assessment must be adjusted.
Changes in technology can also impact sales forecasts. For example, Apple is announcing that it will be removing 3.5mm headphone jacks, which will cause all companies that support legacy features to revise their sales forecasts.
It is possible that things may happen in your organization that affect the sales forecast . For example, the company's overall strategy in the commercial direction has changed, which can directly affect sales figures. Also, the marketing department may conduct a major advertising campaign or decide to promote products in new markets.