How to forecast demand for a new product launch
Quick answer: With no historical data to work from, forecast demand using a proxy product's past sales, a waitlist that measures real buying intent, and a small first order at MOQ instead of a large one. The goal isn't a perfect number, it's a safe enough one to avoid a sellout or a warehouse full of deadstock on your first run.
Launching a completely new product feels like a blind jump. There's zero historical sales data to plug into a spreadsheet, no baseline, nothing to check your gut against.
Most founders end up in one of two bad spots: ordering way too much, or selling out in an hour and losing momentum right as it's building. You can build a reliable forecast without past sales numbers. Here's how to calculate that first purchase order.
Find a proxy product
Look through your existing catalog for an item with a similar price point and a similar audience. Its launch curve is probably the closest thing you have to real data.
Pull that product's early numbers. If your last premium jacket sold 500 units in month one, a new premium coat will likely follow something close to that same curve, adjusted for whatever's genuinely different about the new item.
No close match in your own catalog? Look at a competitor instead. Track their monthly sales volume on a comparable product and use that as a rough baseline for your own launch.
Test the waters with a waitlist
Put up a landing page before you manufacture anything. Run a small batch of ads to it.
Collect emails from people who actually want the product, not just people who clicked. A waitlist of 5,000 genuinely engaged signups gives you real math to work from. Assume something like a 5 to 10% conversion rate from that list to your first order.
Now you have an actual number for your initial run, not a guess dressed up as one.
Order the minimum, not the discount tier
Order the Minimum Order Quantity. Bring in 500 units and see what actually happens once real customers get their hands on it.
Yes, you'll pay a slightly higher price per unit at that volume. That premium is cheap insurance against sitting on deadstock for a product with zero sales history. Sell through that first batch, and you've got real velocity numbers to build your second order around, this time with actual data instead of a proxy or a waitlist estimate.
Scale the launch with A2Z Supply Chain
A successful test batch only stays successful if restocking keeps pace with it. A2Z Supply Chain keeps that second order moving fast.
Inventory planning: We set aggressive reorder points for new SKUs, so a viral spike gets caught early instead of turning into a stockout.
Supplier coordination: We negotiate fast turnaround times with your factories for round two, once the first batch proves demand.
Forecasting: We feed your early launch data into our ML models to map out the rest of the year, not just the next order.
Logistics: We cross-dock emergency restocks directly to fulfillment centers, so a fast-selling launch doesn't stall out waiting on freight.
Round-the-clock support: Our ops pod works 24/7 on Slack, so a factory or shipping question doesn't sit unanswered while a launch is heating up.
The first order is always a bit of a guess. The goal is making it a well-informed one, small enough that being wrong doesn't cost you the whole launch.