Review the company's past financial records over a period of time to determine the market trend over that period of time. Review the sales record to determine the customer base or number of customers the products offered by the company attracted in the period of time under review. This helps you to know the overall performance of all the products offered by the company in terms of growth and decline in market size.
Study the products' market value and review the purchase per customer of the products in the company's product portfolio. Multiply the unit price of the product with the number of purchases per customer then total the amounts from each customer. You will find that a product may show consistent growth in the number of customers purchasing it but has a low market value. This is because large numbers of customers only purchase one unit at a time, or the customers only purchase the products once and do not turn into repeat customers. Other products, on the other hand, may have a smaller customer population but a larger market value, due to repeat customers purchasing products in large quantities.
Carry out research on the current market trends. Review the current performance of your products. Review the performance of the products produced by your competitors.
Consult the production and marketing function of your organization to come up with estimates of the expected sale, thus the expected customers in the forecasting period. Base your estimations on past performances of the business.