Key points:
- Effective demand planning can help your business grow through increasing customer satisfaction, while increasing profit
- Emerging technology can enable eCommerce entrepreneurs to create accurate demand plans, using a wider array of complex data in less time
- Easyship can help you find a reliable shipping solution to meet demand and scale your business
Do peaks in demand lead to your store losing customers due to stock shortages? Creating a forward-thinking demand plan with the latest innovations can help your business grow by being ready for sudden demand spikes.
This article breaks down how demand planning works, how your store can benefit and how new tech can save you time, while helping you create more accurate demand plans.
Table of Contents
What Is Demand Planning?
Demand planning is the process of creating a strategy for future operations, based on a forecast of expected demand. An essential component in creating a successful supply chain management process, orders can be produced and delivered in the most efficient way possible
Benefits of Demand Planning
Effective demand planning can help increase profits and customer satisfaction, driving store growth. Checkout some key benefits from effective demand planning, so that every online store is ready to meet demand:
- Increased on time delivery
- Reducing stock outs
- Lower inventory costs
- Bring down expediated shipping costs
- Reduce dead stock
- Bulk buy prices from suppliers
Effective planning can turn meeting demand from a reactive process, into a proactive process. This is where supply is ready for future events, rather than adjusting to the latest demand.
Demand Forecasting vs Demand Planning
Although similar, demand forecasting is an estimate of customer demand for products. While this a key step in the overall demand planning process, it comes before the creation of a strategy to meet customer demand.
Demand planners will use this statistical forecasting to dive deep into the operational planning and inventory management required to build an effective demand planning process.
Demand plans typically start with an accurate forecast using historical demand based data from a store. Other data is layered on top of the model, analyzing internal and external trends that may impact demand.