Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales

Sales forecasting for new products is significantly important for fashion retailer companies because prediction with high accuracy helps the company improve management efficiency and customer satisfaction. The low inventory strategy of fashion products and the low stock level in each brick-and-morta...

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Main Authors: Dali Chen, Wenbiao Liang, Kelan Zhou, Fan Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-07-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/14/7081
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author Dali Chen
Wenbiao Liang
Kelan Zhou
Fan Liu
author_facet Dali Chen
Wenbiao Liang
Kelan Zhou
Fan Liu
author_sort Dali Chen
collection DOAJ
description Sales forecasting for new products is significantly important for fashion retailer companies because prediction with high accuracy helps the company improve management efficiency and customer satisfaction. The low inventory strategy of fashion products and the low stock level in each brick-and-mortar store lead to serious censored demand problems, making forecasting difficult. In this regard, a two layers (TLs) model is proposed in this paper to predict the total sales of new products. In the first layer, the demand is estimated by linear regression (LR). In the second layer, sales are modeled as a function of not only the demand but also the inventory. To solve the TLs model, a gradient-boosting decision tree method (GBDT) is used for feature selection. Considering the heterogeneity in products, a mixed k-mean algorithm is applied for product clustering and a genetic algorithm for parameter estimation in each cluster. The model is tested on real-world data from a Singapore company, and the experimental results show that our model is better than LR, GBDT, support vector regression (SVR) and artificial neural network (ANN) in most cases. Furthermore, two indicators are built: the average conversion rate and the marginal conversion rate, to measure products’ competitiveness and explore the optimal inventory level, respectively, which provide helpful guidance on decision-making for fashion industry managers.
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spelling doaj.art-d48ae4a3db014ee082c94e1a59709d3f2023-12-01T21:51:29ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172022-07-011214708110.3390/app12147081Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost SalesDali Chen0Wenbiao Liang1Kelan Zhou2Fan Liu3School of Management and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, ChinaNari Group Co., Ltd., Nanjing 210031, ChinaSchool of Management and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, ChinaSchool of Management and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, ChinaSales forecasting for new products is significantly important for fashion retailer companies because prediction with high accuracy helps the company improve management efficiency and customer satisfaction. The low inventory strategy of fashion products and the low stock level in each brick-and-mortar store lead to serious censored demand problems, making forecasting difficult. In this regard, a two layers (TLs) model is proposed in this paper to predict the total sales of new products. In the first layer, the demand is estimated by linear regression (LR). In the second layer, sales are modeled as a function of not only the demand but also the inventory. To solve the TLs model, a gradient-boosting decision tree method (GBDT) is used for feature selection. Considering the heterogeneity in products, a mixed k-mean algorithm is applied for product clustering and a genetic algorithm for parameter estimation in each cluster. The model is tested on real-world data from a Singapore company, and the experimental results show that our model is better than LR, GBDT, support vector regression (SVR) and artificial neural network (ANN) in most cases. Furthermore, two indicators are built: the average conversion rate and the marginal conversion rate, to measure products’ competitiveness and explore the optimal inventory level, respectively, which provide helpful guidance on decision-making for fashion industry managers.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/14/7081sales forecastingfashion productscensored demandinventory decision
spellingShingle Dali Chen
Wenbiao Liang
Kelan Zhou
Fan Liu
Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
Applied Sciences
sales forecasting
fashion products
censored demand
inventory decision
title Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
title_full Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
title_fullStr Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
title_full_unstemmed Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
title_short Sales Forecasting for Fashion Products Considering Lost Sales
title_sort sales forecasting for fashion products considering lost sales
topic sales forecasting
fashion products
censored demand
inventory decision
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/14/7081
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AT kelanzhou salesforecastingforfashionproductsconsideringlostsales
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