Want to crush your competitors with bulletproof demand planning?
Every e-commerce business dreams of having the right amount of inventory in stock. You know… the stuff that doesn’t end in out of stock, and never backorder situations for your bestsellers. And no dead stock piling up taking a massive chunk out of your profit margins. Because accurate demand planning leads to:
But here’s the problem:
Traditional demand planning approaches aren’t enough anymore. If you’re still using legacy methods to calculate demand, you’re guaranteed to struggle. In fact, 89% of companies using omnichannel strategies retain their customers after a single purchase. That’s 3x higher than the 33% of businesses with weak omnichannel strategies.
Without smart demand planning, you’re basically flying blind.
In this guide, you’ll find exactly how to adapt your demand planning for e-commerce and omnichannel success. These are the same techniques being used by businesses all over the world to achieve forecast accuracy above 88% and reduce supply chain errors by as much as 50%.
Traditional demand planning was great… back when sales only happened in physical stores, and it took weeks to restock inventory.
E-commerce has completely changed the game:
Online shopping customers don’t follow the same neat patterns anymore. Mobile research. Desktop buying. Returns in-store. With mobile commerce set to make up 62% of all e-commerce sales by 2027, that behavior is only going to get more complex.
Imagine this:
A single customer browses your products on Instagram. Does a competitor review on their phone during lunch. Then, they buy from you 3 days later on their laptop at home.
Traditional forecasting models can’t capture these multi-touchpoint journeys.
Demand is far more volatile for e-commerce businesses. Flash sales, social media virality, influencer mentions… these things can turn your demand overnight.
Research has shown AI-driven forecasting can reduce supply chain errors by 20 to 50 percent, but only with the right technology.
The old “base + trend + seasonality” school of thought? Don’t even bother. It’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot when TikTok sends 10,000 people to your product page in 2 hours.
Things get a little more interesting now…
Omnichannel demand planning isn’t just traditional demand planning with a few extra channels added in. It’s a completely different game that requires a different mindset.
Omnichannel demand planning means forecasting demand across:
Each of these sales channels has its own demand patterns, customer behavior, and fulfillment requirements. You can’t take your total demand forecast and divide it evenly across channels.
Most businesses have data silos. Your e-commerce platform data won’t talk to your social media analytics, which won’t connect to your inventory management system.
But there’s a solution…
Effective demand planning software integrates all of these data sources together so you have a 360 view of demand across every channel. When everything is connected, you can see demand patterns that would be hidden in individual channel data.
Onto the actual strategies that work…
These methods transform businesses from inventory disasters into demand planning machines. And these are the same techniques being used by omnichannel businesses to smash their targets.
Don’t put all your eggs in one forecasting basket.
The most successful e-commerce businesses don’t just rely on a single approach. Instead, they combine:
Research shows using a mix of forecasting techniques leads to significantly better accuracy. One study found using hybrid forecasting models allowed companies to achieve over 89% forecast accuracy.
Not all products are equal, and neither are your sales channels.
Segment your inventory based on:
Segmentation allows you to apply the right forecasting technique to each product and channel combination.
Traditional planning still updates forecasts monthly or weekly. Far too slow for e-commerce.
Real-time demand sensing takes current data and uses it to continuously adjust forecasts, including:
Adjust forecasts early before they turn into stockouts or overstocks.
Planning can’t be done in a silo.
The most effective e-commerce demand planning is done collaboratively with:
Regular cross-functional meetings ensure everyone is aligned, which improves forecast accuracy.
E-commerce is unpredictable, so your plans need to be too.
Develop multiple scenarios including:
Pre-build scenarios to allow you to react fast when demand veers off baseline.
Let’s be honest here…
Spreadsheet-based demand planning is dead. If you’re still using Excel to do your complex e-commerce demand planning, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Leading demand planning platforms use machine learning to:
Your demand planning solution needs to be able to connect to:
You need to see demand patterns as they happen. Look for solutions with:
Adapting demand planning for e-commerce and omnichannel success isn’t an option anymore. With customers shopping across all different channels and demanding perfect availability, your planning needs to keep pace.
The e-commerce businesses that are winning are using:
Don’t let subpar demand planning be the bottleneck that kills your growth. The tools and techniques to nail your forecasting are out there – you just need to put them in place.
Start with one or two of the strategies above and build up from there. Your inventory levels (and your bank account) will thank you.
