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A narrow forecasting model scoped to margin monitoring alone — no platform, no migration, no six-month rollout. Aimed at retail owner-operators, unbundling the one module people actually use.
In short: Retail Margin Watch is a forecasting model aimed at retail owner-operators, covering margin monitoring. It scores 71/100 on AltF Ideas, carried by monetisation (96) and held back by feasibility (22). Typical pricing is $13k–$198k per customer per year, with a first version reachable in six to twelve months for $33k–$80k.
Retail teams lose discovering a product went underwater a quarter late. The work sits between two systems that were never designed to talk. Whoever knows how it works becomes a single point of failure.
A narrow forecasting model scoped to margin monitoring alone — no platform, no migration, no six-month rollout. Revenue is managed service, which suits a buyer who wants the cost to track the value rather than the seat count.
| Total addressable market | $2.6B |
|---|---|
| Category growth (CAGR) | 10% |
| Annual contract value | $13k – $198k |
| Pricing model | Managed service |
| Time to first revenue | 72 days |
| Startup cost to MVP | $33k – $80k |
| Build effort | 6-12 months |
Forecasting that used to need a data team now runs on off-the-shelf models. Retail is growing at roughly 12% a year, and this job has not been re-tooled since it was designed around paper.
| Who | The gap |
|---|---|
| The incumbent suite | Sells a platform; this job is one neglected module inside it |
| A spreadsheet | The real incumbent in most of the market, and it is free |
| An offshore back office | Cheaper per hour, but does not scale down to the tail |
Accuracy is unforgiving here — one wrong output costs more than the subscription.
An idea you cannot act on is entertainment. Four concrete steps, wired to tools already running on AltFTool.
Score problem urgency, willingness to pay, and reachable audience size before writing any code.
→ AltF IdeaLabAsk how they handle this today and what it costs them. If nobody can quantify the pain, the demand score is optimistic.
→ Survey BuilderCheck availability, DNS, and email authentication in one pass so your first outreach lands in an inbox.
→ AltF DomainOpsStand up intake, the review queue, and billing before you build the clever part.
→ AltF Flow