Configuring demand forecasting settings

Demand settings control how Stockie turns your sales history into a sales velocity - the average daily sales figure every other forecast number is built on. Change these and your reorder points, suggested quantities and Smart mode notifications all move with them.

There are two settings: the lookback period, which decides what history counts, and the demand adjustment, which scales the result.

Set them at Forecast & replenishment → Manage settings → Demand .

Lookback period

The lookback period is the window of sales history Stockie measures. You can choose a rolling window:

• Last 30 days
• Last 60 days
• Last 90 days
• Last 180 days
• Last 365 days

New shops start on Last 30 days.

A rolling window moves with you - a 90-day lookback always covers the most recent 90 full days. For a variant created more recently than that, the window starts on the day it was created, so days before it existed do not count.

Shorter windows follow recent changes closely and react to a spike within days. Longer windows smooth out noise and are slower to notice a real shift. Neither is more correct; it depends on whether a change in the last fortnight is signal or noise for that product.

Custom date ranges

Choose Custom date range to pin the window to fixed start and end dates instead. A custom range does not move forward over time.

This is the tool for seasonal buying. Point the range at the same period last year and forecast against how the product actually sold in that season, rather than against a quiet month that says nothing about the peak ahead.

It also works for excluding a distorting event. A range that stops before a viral week or a one-off wholesale order keeps that spike out of the velocity entirely.

Stockout days are excluded

Stockie divides units sold by the number of days the variant was in stock, not by the length of the window:

sales velocity = units sold in the window ÷ in-stock days in the window

Over a 90-day lookback, a variant that sold 450 units but was out of stock for 10 of those days has 80 in-stock days, giving 5.63 units a day rather than 5.

Days with no stock are not days with no demand - they are days you could not sell. Counting them would drag the velocity down, order less next time, and make the next stockout more likely.

If a variant is set to keep selling when out of stock, it can sell on every day of the window, so Stockie divides by the full window instead.

Demand adjustment

The demand adjustment scales the calculated velocity up or down by a percentage. Choose Increase or Decrease and enter the percentage.

It applies after the lookback calculation, so it moves every downstream number proportionally. A velocity of 10 units a day with a 20% increase becomes 12, and the safety stock, restock to and lead time demand built on it all grow by a fifth.

Use it for what history cannot know: a campaign about to launch, a channel you have recently opened, a wholesale account you have lost. The lookback period tells Stockie what happened; the adjustment tells it what you expect to be different.

It is a single standing percentage, not a schedule. It stays applied until you change it, so an adjustment set for a promotion needs removing when the promotion ends.

Per-variant overrides

Both settings can be overridden for individual variants.

1. On the Demand page, find the Variant overrides card and click Manage.
2. Set a lookback period or demand adjustment for the variants that need one.
3. To return a variant to your store default, tick Clear and use global default in its override.

Overrides resolve per field: a variant can carry its own lookback period while still taking the store's demand adjustment.

Unlike the reordering settings, demand settings have no supplier level. A lookback period or adjustment is either set on the variant or inherited from your store default - setting one on a supplier record does not affect how demand is calculated.

Demand across multiple locations

With stock in more than one location, Stockie attributes each sale to a location so it can forecast them separately.

Point-of-sale sales attribute to the retail location that made the sale. Online orders attribute to the location that fulfilled them, or - where an order has not shipped yet - to the location Shopify has already assigned it to. Sales that cannot be traced to a location are held in an unattributed group rather than dropped, so your store-wide totals stay whole.

If your store has a Sales grouping setting

Stores set up before Stockie moved to attributed demand have a Sales grouping card on the Demand page with two options:

• Combined across all locations - sales from every location are added together into one velocity per variant. Use it if you buy centrally.
• Calculated per location - velocity is worked out separately for each location, based on where orders were fulfilled. Use it if each location orders for itself.

On Calculated per location, demand is attributed only once an order has been fulfilled, so unfulfilled orders count towards no location at all.

If you do not have this card, your store is already on attributed demand and there is nothing to choose.

What does not count as demand

Some sales never reach the velocity calculation:

• Cancelled orders, whatever their state when cancelled
• Unpaid orders - anything Shopify shows as pending, voided or expired
• Returns and refunds, which reduce the quantity counted for the original order rather than being ignored
• Manual inventory changes made in Shopify. Editing a quantity by hand moves your available stock but records no sale, so it does not move demand

The unpaid-order exclusion catches wholesale merchants out. Draft orders invoiced but not yet paid sit as pending, so trade sales can be missing from a forecast that looks right for retail.