Startup Idea: Retail Forecasting and Customer Feedback Software

Startup idea to develop a system that improves retail buying decisions. This automatic system would track customer purchasing habits and directly ask about their future needs, thus providing reliable forecast data to help buyers decide what products to stock.

I work in the retail industry and we are having a bit of a buying problem. Our buyers seem to be guessing what the forecast will be for the next selling cycles and more often than not, they miss the mark by a lot.

We are constantly sending them feedback from our customers in terms of what they're looking for and what they ultimately buy, but it just doesn't seem like they take us seriously. I feel like if there was an objective way to forecast what sales needs will be in the future, it would greatly help our business.

I'm envisioning some sort of automatic system that reaches out to customers and tracks their purchasing habits, follows up with their purchases and goes even further to ASK them what their own upcoming needs will be in the future.

This sort of solid feedback directly from the customer would greatly help the buyers analyze the data and see what kinds of product they'll need to bring in to the store.