Blind forecast

The fashion industry is changing rapidly. Traditional two-collections-a-year companies are becoming outmoded. Companies with the “new collection each month” formula are conquering the market, while retail customers are getting more and more reluctant to spend their budgets six months ahead.

This way of working requires a new approach to the forecasting process. Because of the shortened time-to-market the first forecast has to be made before the first sales orders have come in. The method most widely used in these circumstances is for the sales team to be invited to the collection presentation, where they will have to give a forecast figure for each style/color. Apart from the cost and time-consuming aspects of this method, the main objection to it is its inaccuracy. Companies using this method are often more than 60% off in their predictions.

A3 developed a new method, using the market intelligence of the sales people on the one hand and forecasting techniques on the other. It makes use of a specially developed forecast method based on so-called top/flop structures and distribution analysis per product group. A3 combines different facts from earlier collections and extracts the basic laws and fixed relations in the collections of your company.