Sales forecasting and purchasing for hardware stores and materials distributors.

An enormous catalogue, a few products that sell every day and a huge tail that sells now and then. You need the screw the contractor asks for today without filling the warehouse with what never leaves.

A day in this trade

The long tail of intermittent sales
A product that sells once every two weeks is not forecast like cement. With simple averages you either overbuy or run out just when someone asks for it.
Shortages on job-site products
When the cable, the cement or the pipe runs out the customer does not wait: they buy the whole order elsewhere.
Money asleep in the warehouse
What was bought in volume or at a good price and did not turn over takes up space and capital, and almost nobody sees it in a spreadsheet.

Which part of StockAI applies

Models for intermittent sales
Products with many periods without a sale compete with models built for that pattern (Croston, ETS), not the ones for steady sales.
Tied-up capital, in view
A view of immobilised money ranks products by how long they have not moved and what they cost, worst first.
Minimums and volume breaks
The order respects the minimum and, with price breaks loaded, compares in money whether stepping up pays off or only ties up capital.
ABC-XYZ classification
Separates what matters by value and by regularity of sales, so the safety cushion goes where it is needed instead of evenly everywhere.
Bill of materials
If you assemble kits or finished goods, expected sales turn into how much of each component to buy.
Sample data

A sample morning

Four products of an imaginary hardware store, as StockAI orders them.

Sample data
Product
Sales per day
On hand
Supplier lead time
Reorder point
Cover
Signal
Cement 50 kg (sack)30605 days7 days2.0 daysORDER NOW
THHN 12 cable (roll)43612 days16 days9.0 daysORDER SOON
Latex paint (gallon)615010 days14 days25.0 daysOK
Stop valve 1/2 in0.512015 days20 days240 daysOVERSTOCK

Sample data, invented to illustrate the rule: not from a customer and not a measured result. Cover is on-hand ÷ sales per day; the reorder point is the lead time plus the safety cushion, in days.

How to read the example

Cement has 2 days of cover and its supplier takes 5: PEDIR YA. The cable is under its 16-day reorder point: PEDIR PRONTO. The stop valve sells half a unit a day and there are 240 days of stock: SOBRESTOCK, capital that does not move.

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Worth knowing

  • A new product with no history has no forecast: it shows as SIN DATOS until it gathers at least 20 periods of sales.
  • It does not predict what never happened. A big job you have not closed yet is tested in the scenario simulator, not in the history.
  • StockAI is not your point of sale or your invoicing system.
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Sales and contact: contacto@stockai.es. Phone: +506 7186 2820.

Sales forecasting made in Costa Rica, for companies across Latin America.