The Forecasting Tool

This report indicates how many of each ASIN were ordered in the previous 13 weeks, as well as how many of each ASIN Amazon’s forecasting model predicts they will need in the next 26 weeks. You also have options to show which types of forecasts Amazon used in the report. And download these reports to include in your own forecasting models.

The dropdown menus at the top of the right side of the page will allow you to choose which data you wish to have in your report. Your distributive view options can either be sourcing.

Which means you are viewing the products you sourced from another party and shipped to Amazon or manufacturing, which means you are viewing products you shipped from your own manufacturing warehouse. Your sales view options can either be audit units, which are the units, Amazon audited, or shipped units, which are the actual units you shipped.

When choosing which option here, we would strongly recommend that you use ordered units as this indicates more truthfully what Amazon actually wanted from you and not what you were able to ship in the end. Further dropdown menus will be category, subcategory and brand. If you sell multiple brands, your reporting range options can be daily or weekly.

Your viewing can then be a variety of options, depending which of the reporting ranges you’ve selected. Once you have selected your data criteria from these dropdown menus, you would need to select apply in order for the reports below to be updated accordingly. Once you have the selective use in place, you can then opt to download the various options for reports by clicking on the download button in the top right hand side of the page.

Further to this, the graph below the selection criteria, dropdown menus can also be amended to show even further data selection you can include or exclude ordered units from your report. The audited units shows you what ASINs were ordered in the past. And can give you an overview of a trend when compiled over several months to a year, you can then know to build in a seasonality percentage into your forecasting and planning model for that ASIN.

So we would recommend you leave it in your report. You can include or exclude mean forecast from your report. The mean forecast is Amazon’s best estimate of customer demand for each particular ASIN and as probably the forecast you would most likely use in your own forecasting model, especially if you are using Amazon’s forecasting report for the first time, we would therefore suggest that you use the mean forecast instead.

You can include or exclude P 70 forecast from your report. The P 70 forecast is Amazon’s estimate of a 70% probability that the customer demand will be at or below this value you can include or exclude the P 80 forecast from your report. The P 80 forecast is Amazon’s estimate of an 80% probability that the customer demand will be at or below this value.

And you can include or exclude the P 90 forecast from your report. The P 90 forecast is Amazon’s estimate of a 90% probability that the customer demand will be at or below this value. The table below the graph also allows for further manipulation. You can choose to view by ASIN, subcategories, or categories. You can add additional ASIN identifiers for easier reference to your catalog or other internal reports from your own systems. And you can select your forecast option again, here too.

The premium brand analytics version of the forecasting and inventory planning model does give you additional data. Such as replenishable out of stock. These are the glance views, the product received when it was out of stock, but replenishable as a percentage of the total product glance views, the replenishable out of stock, percentage of total refers to the glance views, the product received when it was out of stock, but replenishable as a percentage of total product glance use across all ASINs.

And the replenishable out of stock from the prior period, these are the glance used the product received when it was out of stock, but replenishable as a percentage of total product glance use from the previous period. Your forecasting, an inventory planning model off of Amazon’s vendor central can greatly assist you in forecasting and planning your inventory to supply Amazon and thereby reduce the risk of being unable to supply Amazon with certain ASINs, especially if you are outsourcing your product and rely on it to be shipped by sea or air to your own warehouse from where you ship to Amazon or its customers. It is also the best tool you have at your disposal to see what Amazon intends to order in the coming 26 weeks.