Patent ID: 8712822

Claim:
A method of predicting future sales rate of a product comprising: (a) electronically storing a first, historical sales rate curve of historical sales of a product; (b) electronically determining for a time t a second sales rate curve for sales of the product up to a time t−1, wherein the second sales rate curve is determined for a window of time W that includes time t, the window of time W has a duration less than the first sales rate curve, and the first and second sales rate curves are determined from actual sales data acquired during mutually exclusive periods of time; (c) electronically comparing the second sales rate curve to one or more portions of the first sales rate curve that have the same duration as window of time W; (d) electronically identifying a section of the first sales rate curve based on a best fit for the electronic comparison in step (c); and (e) electronically predicting future sales rate of the product based on integration of the following equation from time t to a time t+w; SaleRateHist ⁡ ( t ) ⁢ ( 1 + ( SalesRateHist ⁡ ( t ) - avgSalesHist ⁡ ( t + w ) ) avgSalesHist ⁡ ( t + w ) ) where: w is a window of time of the first sales rate curve after the section of the first sales rate curve identified in step (d), SalesRateHist is an historical sales rate pattern, and avqSalesHist is average sales, and wherein each sale rate curve is a discrete time series approximation of a first order derivative of sales.