Amazon vendors streamline their operations with Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA), a system that tracks and records vendors’ operational performance.

Vendor Central users can use a free Basic plan or upgrade to a paid Premium plan, depending on the needs of their business. Amazon Retail Analytics Basic is included by default to Amazon Vendors, while ARA Premium offers more extensive reporting for an additional fee.

An update to the tool has arrived, changing how Amazon relates inventory demand to vendors. Implemented in both Basic and Premium plans, this new rollout is known as the Probability Level Demand Forecast.

Demand is gauged by glance views, sales history, and projected demand for planned promotions, which won’t be changing. However, with the update, vendors will choose from three probability forecasts:

These metrics are all forecasts and not guarantees, which shifts some risk onto the vendor. Amazon does not issue guarantees for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, Amazon may find your product available from a different supplier at a lower price. Vendor lead-time and product profitability are other factors that may influence Amazon’s purchasing decisions.

A secondary update comes in what Amazon calls the “Mean Forecast.” This is replacing projected safety stock, and intended to serve vendors who require a longer lead time (as in over 6 weeks) to provide inventory. This applies to those sourcing and manufacturing products overseas, which comprises a sizeable chunk of Amazon vendors.

The projected safety stock used to consist of the Vendor Lead-Time (VLT) plus one week to estimate the quantity needed. With the update, Amazon will use only the exact VLT to calculate purchase orders. Again, this places more responsibility on the vendor to decide if they will purchase additional safety stock to compensate.

Vendors need to have a solid grasp on Amazon Retail Analytics to maintain a profitable, efficient product demand relationship with Amazon. If you aren’t sure what you should be doing or where to start, we’ve put together five tips.