Predicting your next big sales spike (or drop) can feel like a guessing game, but with the right strategies and insights, you can make more informed decisions.
Whether it’s understanding market trends, customer behavior, or leveraging timing, knowing what’s coming next gives your business a competitive edge. In this edition of Let’s Talk, our experts share their top tips on how to predict and prepare for these sales shifts effectively.
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Alison Morris, General Manager, Australia, Payrix from Worldpay
“While predicting a sales spike or drop is critical for many businesses, making sure that the sale gets across the line is arguably just as important as predicting when it is going to happen. A critical deciding factor here is the availability of payment options demanded by the customer.
“According to Worldpay’s Payments performance report, 34% of Australian consumers shared they have abandoned a digital transaction if their preferred payment method is not available. This means that optimising your payment process and offering a variety of payment methods is essential for Australian businesses to ensure you can stay ahead of your next big sales spike or risk customers going to competitors who can better meet their expectations.
“As digitally native customer expectations increase, consumers are less forgiving of purchasing experiences that are clunky or involve too many steps. 85% of consumers say that one-click payments are crucial with some of the top reasons customers have abandoned their transactions ranging from having too many steps involved (45%), being redirected to another site (42%) and needing multiple retries from failed payments (54%).
“More than ever, merchants need to ensure payments are embedded into the overall experience and work seamlessly or risk customers going elsewhere. Understanding customer behaviours and their motivations, or a lack thereof, behind a transaction can help businesses proactively address any potential challenges — helping businesses manage their next big sale spike or better understand why a drop happens.”
Shaun Broughton, Managing Director, APAC at Shopify
“Understanding the ebbs and flows of sales periods is key to business success, especially in retail. It’s unrealistic to expect high sales every day of the year, but by leveraging the right insights and data, businesses can improve efficiency to predict and prepare for changes – from macro factors to consumer behaviour – allowing them to plan and use resources more effectively.
“For accurate data and insights, a unified platform is needed. Unified commerce enables better decision-making in just about every category you can think of because it creates a single source of data from which retailers can draw for clear insight without any gaps in information.
“No one can confidently predict the next sales spike, but having a view of data relating to customers and inventory can get you pretty close, helping retailers work out how their customers are shopping — and where — which can make or break capitalising on that next sales spike.”
Robin Marchant, Senior Marketing Director APAC, Klaviyo
“Anticipating sales spikes or drops is easier than most businesses think.
“Data-driven predictive analytics can do most of the job for you by looking at customer behaviour like purchase frequency, average order value, churn risk and much more. Using that data, predictive analytics can show you who is most likely to buy, what they’re most likely to buy and when.
“Armed with this information, you can predict sales spikes and drops. You can also plan how you’ll maximise revenue for both scenarios by building highly targeted and personalised marketing campaigns that engage customers with the right product in the right place at the right time.
“One of Klaviyo’s customers Incu did this on Black Friday this year. The brand lowered discounts compared to last year, and through smart targeting achieved stronger sales on full-priced items compared to 2023.
“Speaking of Black Friday, Klaviyo customers used customer data more than ever this year to convert sales. Similarly, brands that prioritised cross-channel campaigns, using SMS in their marcomms mix, generated a 20% YoY increase in BFCM e-commerce revenue.”
Amar Rizvi, Chief Strategy Officer, iMile Delivery Australia
“Navigating peak periods in the evolving e-commerce landscape is influenced by data insights (from previous years’ retail performance), the socio-economic context (for example, Australians may buy more discounted goods during a cost of living crisis) and also variables such as weather (during heatwaves, Aussies will head to the beach or to the mall to enjoy the cool water or air conditioning).
“Traditionally, the Boxing Day sales marked the next major retail spike following Christmas. However, with retailers now launching these sales earlier, often before Christmas itself, we’ve seen this peak merge with Black Friday and Cyber Monday into what can only be described as a four-week retail super event.
“For delivery companies, this extended period of heightened demand presents unique opportunities and challenges. At iMile, we pride ourselves on providing exceptional customer experiences and leveraging technical innovation in last-mile delivery. This approach allows us to seamlessly support the logistics needs of some of the world’s leading e-commerce brands during these intense periods.
“By analysing data trends, fostering strong partnerships, and investing in cutting-edge technology, iMile ensures timely, efficient deliveries even during record-breaking volumes. Our ability to adapt and scale up during these recurring sales peaks is essential to deal with the increased volume of packages.
“For online retail businesses preparing for the next big sales spike, the YoY data will tell you what customers are purchasing and where they live, allowing you to identify patterns where the logistics will most likely need to be focused. Careful planning means you can usually remain one step ahead of the surging demand, and ensure a smooth customer experience.”
John-David Klausner, SVP of Business Development & Strategic Alliances, Loop Returns
“Speaking for retailers, sales leaders typically link spikes or drops in revenue as something that comes out of the blue. However, this is rarely the case. Retailers today have access to a pool of customer data that can help them predict volatile sales, through things like measured customer behaviour, seasonal trends (like Christmas and Boxing Day sales), and market analyses.
“The challenge is knowing where to look and when to act.
“Start with your internal data. Examine purchase patterns, churn rates, and seasonal discrepancies. Do sales rise before product launches? Are certain customers signalling risk through late payments or declining order sizes? By connecting these dots, you can anticipate and react to shifts in sales, not just reflect.
“Next, monitor the macro environment. Economic changes, competitor moves, and market disruptions all impact demand. Combining internal data with external insights equips retailers with a clearer forecast.
“Lastly, technology plays a key role. AI-powered analytics tools transform gut instincts into actionable predictions. They detect patterns faster, alerting you to opportunities or risks before you see them coming.
“Sales performance doesn’t need to feel like a guessing game. Leaders who integrate data, intuition, and the right tech can predict and prepare for their next big spike or drop.”
Shannon Kyle, Transport Solutions Specialist, Teletrac Navman
“Predicting your next big sales spike – or drop – starts with understanding the factors influencing your bottom line and ensuring you are ready to capitalise on the opportunity or are able to mitigate the risk. Rising costs of fuel, parts, and staff mean that relying on last year’s budgets is no longer practical. Staying competitive and getting ahead requires smarter decision making.
“Fleet data offers a powerful solution. Every vehicle in your operation produces insights that go far beyond basic tracking. With the right telematics tools, you can harness this data to optimise costs, improve productivity, and gain a clearer understanding of your business trends.
“With actionable insights into expenses, such as those available through the TN360, you can:
- Mange fleet utilisation, Identifying where costs can be cut and pricing can be adjusted to remain competitive.
- Digitise workflows, compliance management and maintenance schedules to ensure vehicles stay safe and operational, avoiding costly breakdowns.
- Enhance route planning to reduce fuel use and emissions, enabling eco-friendly, cost-effective choices.
“Leveraging data effectively allows you to get the full picture on operational demand and changes so you can steer your business in the right direction, by minimising risks and making informed decisions, no matter the challenges ahead.”
Daniele Iezzi, Group Retail Director at Reward Gateway
“Predicting sales spikes or drops doesn’t require a crystal ball, but rather a careful mix of data analysis, market awareness, and responsiveness to customer signals.
“Historical sales data is vital to the predictions process. Through analysis of past sales trends, with seasonality factored in, we can anticipate patterns around key periods like holidays or launches. However, it’s equally important to also look around and pay attention to market trends. Economic shifts, changes in consumer behaviour, and competitor activity – both local and global- can provide early indicators of upcoming changes to be aware of and prepared for.
“Customer feedback, particularly from social media, also offers real-time insights that can signal shifts in preferences or sentiment before they become widespread. Monitoring these channels closely means we can adapt quickly to what customers are saying, and use this to inform insights on potential sales spikes, or drops.
“Ultimately however, these insights can’t offer full value unless a business can act swiftly. Retail is fast paced, and the ability to make changes on the fly supports ongoing success when predictions fall flat or the market evolves. Combining quick action with insights, agility and strong customer connection will set you up to predict your sales peaks and troughs with more accuracy than ever before.”
Scott Mendelsohn, Owner, Raw C
“With the major supermarkets, we have access to extensive data that provides weekly sales insights. This allows us to sit down and forecast sales for the next 3 to 6 months with greater precision. Managing this has been a challenge, especially as we’re experiencing 40% year-on-year growth amidst ongoing shipping issues from Asia. The data is an invaluable tool that helps us stay ahead of demand and ensure we can meet the supply needs of our customers.”
Annette Densham, Awards Writer
“As a service-based business, with over 10 years under my belt in small business, I’ve learnt key seasonal or annual milestones like Christmas, EOFY, New Year and school holidays or go slow times for many other small businesses. So I ramp up the marketing ahead of these times so going into the traditional slow seasons, I’ve plenty of work to see me through. Small business seems to go into slowdown during these periods, putting off decisions until the season has passed. Knowing this, I focus on other elements of the sales cycle like education-tips, insights and observations-rather than pitching for work.
“Marketing is a business owner’s number one job and for me, that never stops. I’m a big believer in dropping breadcrumbs. While others are withdrawing from the sales and marketing process during those time, I drop those breadcrumbs so I embed what I do in the subconscious of my audience.
“When they are ready to buy or turn up the heat on their business, I’m front of mind because I didn’t stop. This is where repurposing content is really handy; it looks like I’m everywhere but I’m being canny with content already created, reused and reshaped to stay visible.”
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