📈 Understanding Trends: Detecting Demand Spikes
The Trend detection feature in Optiply is designed to spot sudden changes in the purchasing behaviour of your customers.
Unlike a long-term forecast based on years of history, a "Trend" looks at what is happening right now. If a product that usually sells slowly suddenly becomes popular, Optiply identifies this shift to ensure you react in time.
How It Works
Optiply monitors the daily sales frequency of your products.
The Trigger: If a product normally sells 1 time a day but is suddenly ordered 8 times in a single day by different people, Optiply flags this as a trend.
The "Different People" Rule: The system specifically looks for orders from different people. This distinction helps the system validate that the spike is a genuine market trend (increased popularity) rather than just a single customer placing one bulk order (which might not repeat).
Dynamic Reaction
The system's response is elastic—it stretches to meet demand and snaps back when demand fades.
During the Peak: If a positive trend is detected, Optiply advises you to reorder immediately and in higher quantities. This ensures you have enough stock to ride the wave and avoid Lost Sales.
After the Peak: Crucially, the system recognises that this might not be a permanent "new normal." As soon as the sales of the product drop back down, Optiply scales back the purchase advice to the normal quantity.
The Benefit
This dynamic approach prevents two common inventory problems:
Prevents Lost Sales: By reacting fast to the spike.
Prevents Overstock: By not assuming the spike will last forever. It prevents you from being stuck with huge inventory once the hype dies down.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the difference between Trend and Seasonality?
Seasonality: A recurring pattern that happens at the same time every year (e.g., Christmas). Optiply predicts this based on last year's data.
Trend: A sudden, non-recurring change happening now (e.g., a product goes viral on social media). Optiply detects this based on recent days' data.
Will one large B2B order trigger a Trend?
Generally, no. The logic checks for "different people" placing orders. One customer buying 100 units is treated differently (often as an outlier or specific project) compared to 100 separate customers buying 1 unit each.
How quickly does the Trend detection work?
The detection is based on daily sales changes. As soon as the daily volume deviates significantly from the norm, the system incorporates this into the next purchase advice calculation.