At the organizational level, sales forecasting is very important to any retail business as its outcome is used by many functions in the organization: finance and accounting departments are able to project costs, profit levels and capital needs; sales department is able to get a good knowledge of the sales volume of each product; purchasing department is able to plan short- and long-term purchases; marketing department is able to plan its actions and assess the impact of different marketing strategies on sales volume; and finally logistics department is able to define specific logistic needs