Um Guia Detalhado para Previsão de Vendas em Restaurantes

A capacidade do proprietário de antecipar a demanda e gerenciar os recursos de forma eficiente é um dos principais fatores que contribuem para o sucesso de um restaurante.

Apesar de sua importância, a previsão precisa de vendas é frequentemente um aspecto mal compreendido na administração de um estabelecimento lucrativo.

Este artigo tem como objetivo desmistificar o conceito, ajudando você a tomar decisões informadas para maximizar a receita e minimizar o desperdício.

Vamos nos aprofundar no que, por que e como da previsão de vendas, oferecendo conselhos práticos e ideias acionáveis para otimizar as operações do seu negócio.

Vamos mergulhar e explorar esse tópico, começando com a sua definição.

O que é Previsão de Vendas para Restaurantes

Uma previsão de vendas é o processo de utilizar várias informações para prever o volume de vendas para um determinado período no futuro.

Com base em dados históricos, tendências recentes do mercado e variáveis específicas da indústria, são geradas projeções de vendas potenciais, proporcionando aos proprietários de negócios uma ideia do que esperar em termos de receita.

Este utilizador do Quora resumiu o conceito de forma muito concisa da seguinte forma:

Fonte: Quora

Essas projeções são especialmente relevantes para a indústria de restaurantes, pois consideram fatores como mudanças no restaurante, sazonalidade, feriados e eventos locais, e analisam como eles podem afetar as flutuações na demanda dos clientes.

Realizar previsões de vendas regularmente é fundamental para verificar se fatores internos ou externos específicos podem afetar o resultado final do seu restaurante, e como isso pode ocorrer.

Especificamente, é uma prática recomendada realizar ou refazer uma previsão de vendas de restaurantes quando ocorrer qualquer uma das seguintes situações:

Ilustração: Tablein / Dados: RestoHub

Em outras palavras, é importante analisar sua previsão de vendas sempre que houver uma mudança significativa nas operações do seu restaurante.

Além disso, é importante realizar previsões de vendas rotineiramente, pois acumular dados reais sobre o seu restaurante pode proporcionar insights mais relevantes.

Por que as previsões de vendas são tão cruciais para restaurantes?

A Importância da Previsão de Vendas para Restaurantes

A previsão de vendas é crucial para o sucesso e crescimento geral de um restaurante porque facilita a tomada de decisões informadas e a alocação eficaz de recursos.

Existem duas situações em que pode ser especialmente eficaz para orientar suas ações, então vamos dar uma olhada mais de perto nelas.

A primeira situação ocorre quando uma previsão de vendas prevê um crescimento nas vendas para o próximo período. 

Neste caso, os proprietários e gerentes de restaurantes podem utilizar essas informações para se prepararem melhor para o aumento na demanda, aumentando seus pedidos de estoque e modificando a escala de funcionários para lidar com a carga de trabalho adicional.

Por outro lado, imagine que uma previsão de vendas indica uma diminuição nas vendas.

Como isso pode resultar em prejuízos para o restaurante, é necessário tomar medidas proativas para minimizá-los, como melhorar a eficiência do gerenciamento de estoque e até mesmo reduzir o número de funcionários.

Nas próximas seções, vamos explorar três benefícios essenciais de realizar regularmente previsões de vendas, desde ajudar a gerenciar sua equipe e recursos até moldar decisões importantes para o seu negócio.

Vamos começar com o motivo pelo qual essa abordagem ajudará você a gerenciar seu estoque.

Aprimorando a Gestão de Estoque do Restaurante

Prever as vendas desempenha um papel fundamental na otimização do controle de estoque e garantindo que um restaurante sempre tenha a quantidade certa de estoque disponível.

Ao prever com precisão as vendas futuras, os proprietários e gerentes de restaurantes podem tomar decisões informadas sobre quanto estoque comprar e quando.

Essa prática ajuda a encontrar um equilíbrio ideal entre ter estoque suficiente para atender à demanda dos clientes e evitar excesso de estoque que poderia resultar em desperdício de comida.

Prever de forma regular e precisa pode aprimorar o gerenciamento do seu estoque, o que, por sua vez, pode beneficiar o seu negócio de várias maneiras.

Ilustração: Tablein / Dados: Sculpture Hospitality

Em essência, a previsão de vendas permite que os restaurantes otimizem seus processos de pedidos, aumentando as margens de lucro ao reduzir despesas desnecessárias.

Moreover, keeping track of restaurant inventory helps reduce food waste, an important consideration, as restaurants and other food service institutions are the second major contributor to global waste. 

Fonte: RTS

Finally, by implementing sales forecasting, restaurants can also improve customer satisfaction. 

They can predict which menu items are most popular and ensure they are consistently available, preventing disappointment and creating a more enjoyable dining experience for customers.

So, sales forecasting is a valuable tool that can assist you in improving inventory management, optimizing expenses, and ensuring you are equipped to meet the demands of your customers.

Predicting the Restaurant’s Staffing Needs

Another way you can optimize your restaurant’s expenses through sales forecasting is by predicting your staffing needs.

Labor costs often account for a significant portion of a restaurant’s expenses, so it’s essential to manage them properly.

Fonte: Notch

As you can see from the above image, labor costs can take up, at minimum, a quarter of your expenses, and even up to a third, depending on the establishment you are running.

Sales forecasting is critical in predicting staffing needs by utilizing various pieces of data and trends to anticipate how many employees will be required during specific periods. 

This process ensures that the restaurant is adequately staffed without incurring unnecessary labor costs.

In fact, the primary way you can utilize the data from the forecasts is to help prevent understaffing and overstaffing. 

Fonte: Tablein

Both situations can be bad for your business, but by accurately predicting sales, you can adjust staffing needs appropriately.

For example, if your sales forecast indicates that your restaurant will experience a 20% increase in sales during a holiday weekend, you can plan to have more staff members on hand to handle the influx of customers.

On the other hand, if you anticipate a slower period, you can reduce the number of employees scheduled to work, cutting labor costs without sacrificing the quality of your service.

Overall, fine-tuning your staffing through sales forecasting ensures you maximize your profits while having enough workers to keep your restaurant running smoothly.

Making Future Plans Based on Expected Profit

Sale forecasts can help not only in managing your resources and staffing in the short term but can also play a pivotal role in making plans for the future of your business.

A reliable forecast can go a long way for some major business ideas. A positive or negative estimate about future profit can affect a range of decisions, including the following:

• Adjusting marketing efforts
• Menu changes
• Seasonal promotions preparation
• Special events planning

To illustrate our point, we can use a hypothetical situation.

Let’s say your restaurant has conducted a sales forecast that predicts an increase in sales from August to December due to the upcoming holiday season. You may end up with a graph like the one pictured below.

Fonte: Bplans

Based on this information, you can start by making specific inventory and staffing changes, as discussed in the previous two sections.

Additionally, you can make certain menu changes, such as introducing seasonal items or offering holiday-themed dishes to appeal to customers during this time. 

On top of this, you may promote these new menu items and any other seasonal offers by running a social media marketing campaign.

With a reliable sales forecast, you can confidently make these kinds of plans and take proactive measures to maximize profits and ensure the long-term success of your business.

How to Forecast Restaurant Sales for Existing Restaurants

Now that you’ve seen compelling reasons to predict future sales, let’s dive into how you can conduct a forecast.

We’ll start by explaining how to predict sales for an existing restaurant.

The already-established eateries differ from the newly-opened establishments in that they have a wealth of data at their disposal, which can be used to make forecasts more accurate. 

In fact, when doing a sales forecast, you can consider the following:

• Past sales
• Recent sale trends
• External factors, such as seasonal changes, competitor actions, and economic conditions

These pieces of data can be used in historical sales forecasting, a practical approach that can only be used for businesses that have been in operation for some time and have accumulated sufficient data.

Say you want to use your restaurant's sales data from the last six months to predict the profit for the upcoming four months.

In that case, you would use the historical trends and patterns in the past data to create a projection that may look like the graph shown below.

Fonte: Exceldemy

You don’t need special tools to create these kinds of forecasts, as a simple Excel spreadsheet can be used to analyze your existing data and visualize the results. 

The above graph shows the forecast with a thick orange line alongside the upper and lower confidence bounds to account for potential variations.

As you can see, forecasting sales for existing restaurants is primarily a data-driven process that leverages your historical trends to make informed predictions and set the stage for your future success.

How to Forecast Restaurant Sales for New Restaurants

Forecasting the sales of new restaurants requires a slightly different approach than doing so for already-established eateries.

Since new restaurants lack enough data to make historical forecasts, the forecasting process involves more intuition and estimation. For these situations, intuitive forecasting is one of the best options.

Despite being called intuitive forecasting, this method is far from being unsupported by data. 

On the contrary, if you plan on conducting a forecast in this manner, you should use several data points, such as the following:

• The number of days you plan to be open each week
• The average number of guests you'll serve weekly
• The average anticipated spending per guest

As most of this information is based on assumptions, it’s best to consult with other restaurant owners and use their data and experiences to create your sales forecasting model. 

You can also try and use a simple formula.

Ilustração: Tablein / Dados: GloriaFood

The sales forecast is calculated by multiplying the number of diners you expect to visit in a given period by the average food sales and adding that to the number of diners multiplied by the average drinks sales.

This data lets you make informed menu pricing choices, determine your staffing requirements, and helps you adjust your overall business strategy to ensure you are well-prepared.

New restaurants face unique challenges in forecasting, but with the right approach, accurate sales forecasts can still be achieved.

How Reservation Software Helps With Sales Forecasting

A sales forecast doesn’t have to be done solely by crunching numbers by hand.

In fact, many software solutions can help provide the necessary data to streamline this process, making forecasting both more accurate and efficient.

Your POS system, for instance, can provide crucial sales data, such as total revenue, the average transaction value, and the number of customers served within specific periods. 

This information can be integrated into your sales predictions and used to analyze trends and customer purchasing behavior.

And, by adding the data from a feature-rich restaurant reservation app like Tablein to the mix, you can further enhance the accuracy of your sales predictions. 

Tablein is a comprehensive reservation management system that helps restaurants manage bookings, reservations, and customer relations. 

Besides being a valuable way for your guests to book tables, Tablein provides detailed reports that can give you a wealth of information for your restaurant revenue forecasts.

Fonte: Tablein

This software solution provides several practical data metrics, such as the following:

• Most-booked hours
• Country list
• Loyal guests
• Recent reservations

For example, the data concerning the most-booked hours can help you quickly identify peak dining times, with statistics being conveyed in intuitive and detailed graphs, such as the one pictured below.

Fonte: Tablein

You have the flexibility to select the time for which you want the data, such as a specific week, a month, or even the entire Tablein lifetime, allowing you to view more general trends across longer time spans and get more detailed findings.

Leveraging software solutions such as your POS or a reservation system like Tablein enables you to optimize your sales forecast, accurately anticipate future trends, and, ultimately, increase your profits.

Conclusion

Throughout this comprehensive guide, we've explored the importance of restaurant sales forecasting and how it can be a game-changer for your business. 

By understanding this concept and implementing the strategies we have covered, you will be able to make more informed decisions about the future of your establishment and optimize your staffing and resource management practices.

Doing so can ultimately help boost your restaurant's profitability and bottom line in the long run.

As you apply the gained knowledge and strategies to your restaurant's unique circumstances, you'll find that sales forecasting becomes an indispensable tool for propelling your business toward sustainable growth and success. 

So, it's time to implement your newfound knowledge and witness your restaurant thrive like never before.