Marketplace Boom Breaks Traditional Retail Forecasting, CEO Says

Online retailers selling across multiple channels are running into a data wall. Marketplaces now account for 61% of total ecommerce gross merchandise value in Europe, according to recent research, and 47% of consumers start product searches there. Most active sellers operate on six marketplaces at once, the same research found. That sprawl makes it nearly impossible to keep demand, stock levels and sales in a single view.

“Retailers today are navigating a ‘perfect storm’ of market conditions where traditional growth tactics no longer suffice,” said Alexey Spas, CEO of software engineering company Instinctools. His firm builds tools for retailers, ecommerce and logistics companies. The core issue, he said, is data scattered across isolated systems. Demand volatility, short-lived trends and supply chain disruptions add to the mess. Promotions that distort normal demand compound it further.

Traditional forecasting methods like spreadsheets become a bottleneck when sellers handle too many SKUs, channels or warehouses. Manual consolidation and conflicting spreadsheet versions lead to recurring stockouts or excess inventory. Forecasting that should take hours can stretch into days.