From data that includes prices and unit sales of an item of commerce for a succession
of time periods during which the item was sold, a relationship is derived that
represents variation of unit sales of the item as a function of price and time
of sale. A maximum profit is predicted by optimizing the price or inventory or
both over time in accordance with the relationship. The optimized price or inventory
or both over time are used in connection with making price decisions or inventory
decisions or both with respect to marketing the item of commerce. A group of the
data is aggregated, the group being chosen so that the aggregated data for the
group will have an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio with respect to information about
sales trends. The aggregated data for the group is analyzed for use in making price
decisions with respect to marketing the items of commerce. A series of charts illustrating
variations in sales over time are generated automatically, different charts being
for different selected sets of the data.
