"You can't forecast growth without understanding your past. Seasonality is the foundation of smart inventory and smarter marketing." — AmpliSell Inventory Specialist
Seasonality isn’t a once-in-a-while concern, it’s a constant factor in how products perform. The brands that grow on Amazon are the ones that track patterns all year long and use them to plan ahead.
At AmpliSell, we track product, brand, and market-level sales trends month by month. Our inventory team shares these insights across departments to shape restock decisions, ad budgets, and promotional pushes. It’s a deeply collaborative process built on data, discipline, and forward-thinking planning—and it works.
Here’s how we break it down.
At the most granular level, we study each SKU’s performance across the calendar year. We don’t just look at numbers, we analyze context. For every product, we track:
We compare this month’s sales to the same month last year to identify consistent patterns. If a product always spikes in summer, we can plan inventory and marketing around that seasonal demand.
We annotate any disruptions, like being out of stock or a suppressed listing—directly in our restock sheets. This helps us understand sales dips in context and avoid repeating preventable mistakes.
We track 30-day sales velocity, current stock levels, and how many days of inventory are left. This helps us make fast, data-backed decisions on reorders and promotions.
Beyond tracking individual SKUs, we analyze how the brand performs month over month, and which products are influencing those results.
This view allows us to identify three critical patterns:
We study how the brand behaves throughout the year. If, for example, we notice a consistent dip in February followed by a rebound in April, we take proactive steps. That might mean adjusting inventory orders to prevent overstock during slow periods or refining advertising strategies to drive better performance in those quieter months.
We look for correlation patterns, if your top product’s sales trend mirrors your brand’s overall performance, it likely means your brand is heavily dependent on that single SKU. That’s a risk. If it goes out of stock, it can pull down the entire brand. Identifying this early helps us plan inventory proactively to prevent disruption.
Even if your brand is performing well, there’s still a question: Are we growing in line with the category, or falling behind it? To answer that, we tap into the Search Query Performance Report inside Amazon Seller Central.
This report tells us:
When we overlay brand performance against the broader market, we can pinpoint:
With this layered view of performance, we can quickly uncover answers to key questions, like:
Why did sales dip in May? Was it a market-wide slowdown, or our execution?
Are there hero products we need to keep in stock at all times to avoid hurting the brand?
Which SKUs are underperforming due to preventable issues like poor inventory planning?
Understanding the “why” behind performance empowers us to respond with data-driven strategies, especially when it comes to inventory planning and ad strategy.
Seasonality analysis directly informs how we forecast and replenish inventory:
You can’t afford to understock your bestsellers, or overstock slow movers. This system helps us get the balance right.
At AmpliSell, marketing decisions are always aligned with inventory insights.
Here’s how our team leverages seasonality data to guide campaign strategy:
This is what we call inventory-minded marketing, a joint effort between ads and inventory that avoids waste and boosts return on ad spend.
Treating every month the same means missing key opportunities.
Smart brands recognize that seasonality shapes performance, and understanding the “why” behind it allows for intentional planning across inventory, campaigns, and strategy that drives consistent, sustainable growth.
