Forecasting for Highly Seasonal Products (Best Practices)

A highly seasonal forecast would be something like a Halloween costume that only sells for 30 or 60 days out of the entire year. Most of the year you make zero sales, but you still need a forecast to tell you when to place your purchase orders, and when to transfer inventory to Amazon. In this tutorial, we will show you the best tools to use (and to not use) in order to have a meaningful highly seasonal product.

For more options on Seasonal Forecasting, please check out our full tutorial here.

Here is a summary of the settings covered in this video.

NOTE: There may be exceptions to these suggestions. Your business is your responsibility and we encourage you to learn the forecasting tools so you are confident with their use. These are not "one size fits all" rules, they are best practices for a majority of sellers.

Set your 12-month forecast timeline

Use Last Year’s Sales velocity

Turn the Stock out tool OFF

No manual seasonal spikes

Turn on the Trend tool using the past 365 days if appropriate

Snooze ordering and transferring optional

Fill in any gaps with the Lightning Deals tool

Use Additional Sales Growth % if appropriate