Sales forecast

Sales forecasting is the determination of the anticipated amount of sales of products that a company has on offer. This forecast depends on factors such as the marketing plan, changing trends or competition. When forecasting sales, it is useful to consider things such as customer behavior, condition of market in the future, relationship between supply and demand or the economic conditions in the areas where the business operates.

Sales forecasting methods in gastronomy

One method of forecasting sales is to assume sales volumes. Being at the start of your business, the extent to which the needs of the market are being met is worth investigating, so that we can estimate the future value of sales. To do this, you need to determine the size of the market you should want to find out how many customers your competitors are serving. These activities should show how much market demand is covered. Once the analysis is done, we can use a simple formula.

Market potential – number of customers served in the market = number of customers that are not going to use our service, and therefore won’t lead to increased supply. Knowing this value, we can move on to calculating the value of sales using the formula.

Number of customers that do not lead to an increase in supply multiplied by an average order value at our premises.

Another method is to try to estimate the degree of market saturation. We do this by dividing the number of potential guests by the size of the market.

Applying mathematical methods can provide us with a lot of important information. Before doing so, however, it is worth observing the competition. In practice, this means several visits to a competitor’s premises, during which we can see the potential number of customers and the average value of orders.

The second issue to address when it comes to forecasting sales is the cost of raw material. When forecasting profits, it is useful to determine the costs incurred by our company. It is worth using the cost of raw material for groups of products. This is because we can impose a much higher margin on certain products.

The cost of employees is also a very important aspect when forecasting sales. Without them, the enterprise would not be able to function. It is worth treating the cost of employees as a fixed cost and not making it dependent on sales, although bonuses for employees can be considered an exception from that general rule.

One of the last aspects to be addressed when it comes to sales forecasting is operating costs. These are all costs that do not change in proportion to sales, but are not fixed. These include things such as rubbish collection, equipment servicing, water, electricity, advertising campaigns, website, purchase of appropriate cleaning products, and so on.

Profit is the key factor that illustrates how much money is left after all costs have been deducted. An increase in sales volume does not necessarily mean an increase in profit at the same time. A common strategy is to increase costs just to sell more products. The best solution is to increase sales while optimizing costs. By doing so, profit will be greatest.

Software for bakeries and pastry shops

One solution to forecasting sales s is to use the right software. We, for example, offer Ada++ software for bakeries and pastry shops that uses one of the most innovative algorithms that, among other things, helps to better manage product stocks, orders, and own shops. The algorithm is able to create orders itself based on data such as deliveries and returns, name days, weather, shortages or order anomalies. While using Ada++, you do not have to worry about things like sales forecasts.

The algorithm is able to reduce the level of returns on its own and increase the number of products ordered so that the quantity is adequate for current sales. By setting up the product individually for each customer, the artificial intelligence is able to adapt its system from many different angles. Based on parameters such as location, opening hours, closing hours, number of spaces at the counter and expiry dates, the algorithm is able to create orders on its own, check current stock levels, process information on returns, and eliminate many order-related anomalies,this detecting all anomalies and fixing errors.

Besides Ada++, it is worth using other products from InfoPiek: InfoPiek Production, which is one of the best tools for improving production management. For employees who work away from the company, the company has created the InfoPiek Mobile app, which can locate the device on which it has been installed. In addition, the app allows an order to be saved on a device that is off-line, where the order in question will be sent once a network connection is established.

As you can see, IT solutions are able to make the work of many people much easier Thanks to the Ada++ AI, running a bakery or pastry shop becomes something much easier. Program will calculate the sales forecast itself, and this allow us to focus on running the business efficiently.