Comments on: How are retail sales forecasts like baby due dates?

By: Why most sales forecasts suck...and how Monte Carlo simulations can make them better | Retail: Shaken Not Stirred

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:51:52 +0000

[...] Of course, this number is impossibly precise and the analysts who generate it usually know that. However, those on the receiving end tend to assume it is absolutely accurate and the probability of hitting the forecast is close to 100% — a phenomenon I discussed previously when comparing sales forecasts to baby due dates. [...]

By: Wanna be better with metrics? Watch more poker and less baseball. | Retail: Shaken Not Stirred

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:55:44 +0000

[...] How retail sales forecasts are like baby due dates [...]

By: Kevin Ertell

Kevin Ertell — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:04:51 +0000

Thanks for your comment, John. My hope is that anything that improves the quality of the discussion around sales will also help to improve the tactics designed to improve sales. Certainly, discussing the sales-driving tactics instead of the methodology used to generate the forecast is a step in the right direction.

By: John Brimacombe

John Brimacombe — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:14:08 +0000

After spending the majority of my career in retail in planning and analysis, it is refreshing to read a different way to think about sales forecasting. In my experience, the decision makers would become so focused on the number in the forecast column, that when actual results missed the forecast, they ended up spending more time trying to figure out what was wrong with the forecast than thinking about changes that could be made to impact the business going forward. I’m not sure if your proposed method will make it easier to achieve our sales plan (I’ll still have to noodle on it a bit) but I like the idea, and I definitely think it would improve the sales discussions, and help to put the long term and short term objectives in the appropriate perspective.