Reach New Heights by Strapping Your Opencart Store with SalesForecast

You need real data and information to make major business decisions. To obtain this data, you need tools to analyze metrics and make forecasts. Predicting sales is a fundamental part of running and growing any type of E-Commerce business. SalesForecast lets you project expected sales and revenue for a period you select.

How can forecasting sales and profits helps your business?

Before diving into predictions for high revenue, let’s take a step back to your business plan.

A strong business plan is the backbone of your entire E-Commerce business. It’s the starting point from which you build up your web store, business model, marketing strategy and everything else.

Every business plan needs a sales forecast in order to be complete. To have an accurate perspective and clear look into the possible future, you have to collect data about sales and user behavior from past months and years.

What are your assumptions?

It’s very important to clarify your own assumptions before you begin. Don’t be afraid to have high expectations, just don’t get carried away with unrealistic ambitions. Stick to more accurate and data and

What is constantly changing around your business? Stock levels, new products, holidays and promotions, these are factors that have significantly affected your sales during the past few months. And they always shift.

For instance, a shift in your market has lead to new customers. Or maybe the season for one of your product categories has ended (Winter has passed, and people don’t need skiing equipment anymore), leading to a decrease in sales.

These are the assumptions for your sales forecast and they form the starting point of the forecast for the months ahead. One of the mistakes that often leads to contradictory forecasts is ignoring your own assumptions and the expectations you have for future sales.

What is the behavior of your customers?

You need to track and be aware of how your customers interact with your store. What are their purchasing habits, what is the average order value, what is your cart abandonment rate?

Knowing how your buyers are behaving is the only way to make accurate assumptions and forecasts about your selling process. From there on, you can make a forecast of the future sales or factor in the changes you are planning to make.

A sales forecast needs to include possible improvements you want to make to your website. For example, a better user experience and optimization for higher conversion rates.

How to start your sales plan?

There are many important metrics that you can include in your sales forecast. Some of the most vital are:

  • How many customers have you gained and lost over the past year?

  • What is the average level of sales per customer?

  • What time of year do sales go up and down?

Your sales plan should have established objectives that you want to accomplish over the specified period. The sales forecast will project the expectations based on all the factors you calculate: your assumptions, your customers’ behavior and the objectives you set.

How SalesForecast helps your OpenCart store?

The installation of the SalesForecast module is as easy as that of any other OpenCart extension. Using this tool is very straightforward and simple. SalesForecast gives a projection for your expected sales quantity and revenue over a period that you select. The forecast bases the results on historical sales data for a sample data period that you choose.

There are three sections you need to fill out to get the forecast projection.

First, you choose the Historical Period that you want to use for collecting sales data. It can be 6 months or an entire year - your choice.

The Forecast Period sets the number of months ahead you want to use for the sales and expected revenue projection.

After setting the periods, simply input the Products you want to subject for calculation of future profits.

The results are based on the sales and revenue you have made from these products during the selected period.

Historical QTY indicates the number of sales the product has generated in the past, and the Forecast QTY is what the sales are expected to be for the selected future period. The Expected Revenue is a calculation of the profits you will make if the results of the forecast come to fruition.

How to use these results?

This depends on the goals you have set to achieve. You can use the estimated data to make important decisions for fulfilling your business goals and objectives.

Without this kind of information, you may not be sure how to maintain stock levels, how to manage your resources, and how to prepare for reaching future success.

Of course, forecasts can always change in the last minute and you might get unexpected results. However, when you have this kind of information at your disposal, you can make informed decisions and pinpoint possible issues that may need improvement.

Final words

Running your E-Commerce store needs periodical sales forecasting as it helps you identify demand, maintain pricing stability, sustain inventory management and many more. A simple module like SalesForecast is easy to use and the information it gives can go a long way if you know how to use it.

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