This feature is available as a free trial for merchants with Advanced and Enterprise plans and who have more than one outlet. This is the second phase of the new Forecasting feature. It is expected to run until September 26, 2024, at which point merchants will be required to upgrade their plan or pay for it as an add-on to maintain access to the feature. Contact your Account Manager for more details.

You can decrease cost of goods sold and increase profit margins with the new Forecasted demand and Suggested reorder quantity measures. These, when  added to the Replenishment report, can help you plan your required ordering of non-seasonal items.

You can use these measures to:

• Access accurate suggested order amounts, accounting for out-of-stock periods.
• Minimize manual tasks by accessing these details in the platform, rather than exporting inventory and sales reports to determine replenishment. 
• Avoid under- or over-stocking products.

These features are especially helpful if you reorder existing catalog items from suppliers throughout a year or season, rather than purchase new items for an upcoming season or year.  

The use of this forecasting tool is at the user’s own risk. Lightspeed cannot guarantee the accuracy and reliability of the forecasts generated. Actual results may differ. The tool is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial, investment, or legal advice. Users are encouraged to exercise caution before making business decisions based on the tool’s output.

To access the forecasting columns, navigate to Reporting > Inventory reports and click on the Replenishment tab.

The date range will be set to forecast the next four weeks by default, but can be reconfigured to suit your needs.

Forecasted demand 

This default measure shows how much stock you would need for a selected period. Forecasted demand is based on Items sold per day (excluding stock-outs) from the last six weeks.

If you want to order stock for the next eight weeks, you would choose to forecast for eight weeks in the date picker. The column will display how much inventory of each SKU it estimates you would need for that period, using the most recent six weeks of sales data to calculate.

Suggested order quantity

Suggested order quantity takes forecasted demand and subtracts closing and inbound inventory to reliably predict how much stock you should order for the selected date range.

Formatting results for multiple outlets

If you have multiple outlets, you can format these results to show a breakdown by outlet.

1. Click Format results.
2. Select By outlet.
3. Click Apply.

This will show the forecasted demand and suggested reorder quantity per outlet for each SKU. This can help determine which outlets need to restock and identify opportunities to transfer stock between outlets.

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