📊How To: Understand Why Products with a Forecast of 0 Appear in Your Advice
It can be confusing to review a purchase order and see a product listed that has a calculated forecast of exactly 0. Why would the system advise you to buy something it predicts you won't sell?
Despite having a zero forecast, these products are purposefully pushed to your order advice. This happens because the algorithm lacks the historical data needed to make a mathematical prediction, so it falls back on a safety mechanism. Here are the two reasons this occurs and how you should handle them.
🛑 1. Why the Forecast is 0
If a product has a forecast of 0 but is still placed on your agenda, it falls into one of these two "insufficient data" categories:
The Product Has Never Been Sold: The item is brand new to your catalogue and has zero historical sales data.
The Product is "Immature": The item has a history of fewer than five registered sales order moments.
In both of these scenarios, Optiply officially considers the item to be a new product. Because there is no trend line to follow, the mathematical forecast defaults to 0.
🛡️ 2. The Default Advice: Ordering 1
Because the algorithm knows the product exists but cannot predict its demand, it triggers a safety net. To prevent you from forgetting to stock this new item entirely, Optiply defaults to advising you to have exactly 1 in stock. The system pushes the item to your purchase advice with a recommended order quantity that brings your inventory up to 1 piece.
🔴 3. Look for the Red Dot
Optiply knows that ordering exactly 1 piece of a new product might not fit your actual business strategy!
To warn you that the system has too little information to give good advice, these products are flagged with a Red Dot on the purchasing page.
The red dot is a direct signal that you need to intervene. It indicates that the automation has reached its limits, and it is crucial that you manually adjust the advised quantity (whether that is 5, 50, or 100) based on your own market knowledge and product launch strategy.
❓ 4. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When will the forecast be greater than 0?
The forecast will begin to populate with actual predicted numbers once the product registers its 5th day of sales. At that point, the red dot will disappear, and the algorithm will take over calculating optimal stock levels based on the new trend.
Do I have to buy the 1 piece if I don't want to?
Not at all! If you are not ready to stock the item yet, you can simply click the Snooze button or remove it from the active purchase order. You are in full control of the final decision.
What if the product is old but still has a 0 forecast?
If a product has been in your catalogue for years, has more than 5 historical sales, but still has a forecast of 0 and a red dot, it usually means the item has been completely out of stock and inactive for a very long time. The system will treat it like a new product again to help you reboot its inventory.