🏢 The Wholesale Setting: Optimising for B2B
The Wholesale Setting is a specialised algorithm mode designed for businesses that sell primarily to other businesses (B2B) rather than directly to consumers (B2C).
When you activate this setting, Optiply tweaks its core forecasting calculations to accommodate the bulk buying behaviours and longer cycles typical of wholesale trade.
Three Key Algorithm Changes
Enabling this feature fundamentally changes three specific behaviours in the Optiply engine:
1. Adjusted Outlier Filtering
Standard Behaviour (Retail): A sudden, massive order (e.g., 500 units) is often flagged as an "outlier" or mistake and filtered out of the forecast to prevent overstocking.
Wholesale Behaviour: The mechanism becomes more tolerant. Sell orders that would be considered unusual for normal e-commerce shops, but are normal for wholesalers (bulk purchases), will not be filtered out. The system recognises these as genuine demand signals.
2. Extended Sales History
Wholesale Behaviour: The algorithm looks at a longer period of sales history.
The Benefit: By analysing a wider timeframe, the system can identify long-term patterns more effectively, making seasonality forecasting even more accurate for businesses with slower or seasonal rotation.
3. No Demand Imputation (Lost Sales Calculation)
Standard Behaviour (Retail): When a product is out of stock, Optiply usually "imputes" (guesses) what you would have sold to prevent the forecast from dropping to zero.
Wholesale Behaviour: Optiply will not impute demand data.
The Logic: When there is no stock and no sales, the system will not assume sales could have happened. Instead, it assumes the data is trustworthy (0 sales = 0 demand). This prevents the system from artificially inflating the forecast based on theoretical demand during stockouts.
How to Activate It
You can toggle this feature on or off in your main configuration:
Go to Settings: Navigate to the Settings menu.
Locate Algorithm: Find the section labelled Algorithm.
Toggle Feature: Switch on the Wholesale setting.
Availability
The wholesale filtering feature is unavailable in the Optiply Lite version.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Should I use this if I sell both B2B and B2C?
This depends on which side of your business drives the most volume. If your large B2B orders are constantly being ignored by the system as "outliers," enabling this setting will fix that. However, be aware that it stops calculating lost sales for your B2C side during stockouts.
What does "Impute Demand" mean?
Imputing demand is the process of "filling in the blanks." In standard retail, if you are out of stock for a week, the system assumes you missed sales. In Wholesale mode, this is turned off, meaning the forecast relies strictly on recorded sales orders.
Why is a longer history better for Wholesale?
Wholesale trends often move slower than fast-fashion retail. By looking further back, Optiply can distinguish between a true seasonal spike (e.g., every Q3) and a random short-term fluctuation.
I am on Optiply Lite. Can I upgrade to get this?
Yes. Since this feature is unavailable in the Lite version, you would need to upgrade your subscription to a plan that includes advanced algorithm settings. Please contact support for upgrade options.