1.1 The Sales Forecast (Sales Read)
The Sales Forecast is built by the commercial team — account managers, sales leaders, and trade planners. It is grounded in in-store consumer performance: what is scanning through the register, how many stores are carrying each item, and what lift promotions are generating.
The Consumption Sales Forecast is bottom-up for customers for whom Point-of-Sale (POS) data is available. It is built from:
A baseline consumption forecast (store counts × base velocity, by retailer and item)
Promotional lift layered on top of the baseline
New distribution opportunities (confirmed and unconfirmed)
Shippers, displays, and seasonal activities
The Shipment Sales Forecast is directly linked to the consumption sales forecast through a buy-in delay that lags consumption timing to estimated shipment timing. It can be modified in settings → Forecast settings.
Additionally, customers listed as Direct Order Forecasting (where no POS data exists and data does not need to be lagged) appear under the Shipment Sales Forecast. Customers can be set to Direct Order Forecasting under Settings → Forecast Settings.
The output of the Shipment Consumption Forecast is what Confido calls a ‘sales read’ — a comprehensive view of expected volume from the bottom up, rooted in in-store signals. It flows into the Demand Planning workspace as an opinion line called the Sales Forecast, alongside other elements from the commercial side — including Promotions, Pipefills, and Discounts — that flow through as their own distinct layers. The connection is pulled weekly by the system but can be refreshed at any point through refresh triggers at each level (Product, Family, or Total Set).
Full Sales Forecast Sync | Sync at individual product level |
1.2 The Demand Plan (Demand Forecast)
The Demand Plan is owned by the demand planning team. Typically, the demand plan is built to develop an independent understanding of the unconstrained demand for a product. It is built at the shipment level and is used to drive production planning, inventory management, and supply chain decisions.
The Demand Plan may:
Use the Sales Forecast as its base (especially for new items or new distribution where no shipment history exists)
Use a statistical model that is based on historical shipment data (for mature, steady-state customer/product combinations)
Combine both — run a statistical baseline and layer on promotional and distribution intelligence from the sales team
Override either input where the demand planner has specific business context
Important: The Sales Forecast and Demand Plan can show different numbers — this is expected and correct. The Sales Forecast represents what the sales team hopes to sell — their opinion built from in-store signals and commercial assumptions. The Demand Plan is the independent plan the brand thinks it will actually sell on an unconstrained basis. The Sales Forecast is one input among several for decision making. |