Streamline offers two methods to forecast a new product:

This method implies that the item's forecast is calculated based on the parent item model and the market share that the item forms in its parent category.

To use this approach, select the new product in the Tree View, then in the Forecasting tab go to the Forecast approach control, select Top-down and click the Forecast button in the program toolbar.

The blue down-arrow indicates that the top-down method has been applied to generate forecasts for the item.

Streamline allows borrowing a model from another item. To use this method, select an item which model you would like to use in the Tree View, right-click on it to access the context menu and select the Copy item to clipboard. Then select the item the model will be applied to, go to the Forecasting tab and paste the copied item code in the Use model from control, click the Forecast button. You can use the Multiplier control to adjust the copied model.

In the figure above the model of the item ‘016542 Yellow’ is used to build the forecasts for the item ‘016543 Purple’. This method works well for products with very similar seasonal patterns. The multiplier is applied because sales of the new product are twice as low compared to the original product in our example.

Next: Product Substitutions

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