System for predicting sales lift and profit of a product based on historical sales information

A system comprising:

• a memory device having embodied therein historical sales information pertaining to one or more products distributed by a vendor and sold at a plurality of locations and over at least two periods of time, including at least one period of time during which the one or more products were the subject of a promotion and at least one period of time during which the one or more products were not the subject of a promotion;
• and
• a processor in communication with said memory device, said processor configured to:
• receive information pertaining to a proposed promotion for a selected product either identical to or closely associated with the one or more products for which historical sales information is embodied in the memory device, the proposed promotion being planned for a future period of time in one or more locations;
• predict an expected base sales of the selected product in the one or more locations during the future period of time based on the historical sales information;
• predict an expected sales lift that would be caused by the proposed promotion for the selected product in the in one or more locations during the future period of time based on the historical sales information;
• predict the profit to the vendor from the sales lift achieved during the future period of time;
• obtain or compute a cross-elasticity factor relating the selected product to a second product selected from the one or more products for which historical sales information is embodied in the memory device;
• and
• apply the cross-elasticity factor to estimate a sales lift for the second product caused by the proposed promotion of the selected product during the future period of time.