A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches

Abstract Companies in the fashion industry are struggling with forecasting demand due to the short-selling season, long lead times between the operations, huge product variety and ambiguity of demand information. The forecasting process is becoming more complicated by virtue of evolvi...

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Main Authors: Kharfan, Majd, Chan, Vicky W. K., Firdolas Efendigil, Tugba
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer US 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136919
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author Kharfan, Majd
Chan, Vicky W. K.
Firdolas Efendigil, Tugba
author_facet Kharfan, Majd
Chan, Vicky W. K.
Firdolas Efendigil, Tugba
author_sort Kharfan, Majd
collection MIT
description Abstract Companies in the fashion industry are struggling with forecasting demand due to the short-selling season, long lead times between the operations, huge product variety and ambiguity of demand information. The forecasting process is becoming more complicated by virtue of evolving retail technology trends. Demand volatility and speed are highly affected by e-commerce strategies as well as social media usage regards to varying customer preferences, short product lifecycles, obsolescence of the retail calendar, and lack of information for newly launched seasonal items. Consumers have become more demanding and less predictable in their purchasing behavior that expects high quality, guaranteed availability and fast delivery. Meeting high expectations of customers’ initiates with proper demand management. This study focuses on demand prediction with a data-driven perspective by both leveraging machine learning techniques and identifying significant predictor variables to help fashion retailers achieve better forecast accuracy. Prediction results obtained were compared to present the benefits of machine learning approaches. The proposed approach was applied by a leading fashion retail company to forecast the demand of newly launched seasonal products without historical data.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1369192021-11-02T03:19:18Z A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches Kharfan, Majd Chan, Vicky W. K. Firdolas Efendigil, Tugba Abstract Companies in the fashion industry are struggling with forecasting demand due to the short-selling season, long lead times between the operations, huge product variety and ambiguity of demand information. The forecasting process is becoming more complicated by virtue of evolving retail technology trends. Demand volatility and speed are highly affected by e-commerce strategies as well as social media usage regards to varying customer preferences, short product lifecycles, obsolescence of the retail calendar, and lack of information for newly launched seasonal items. Consumers have become more demanding and less predictable in their purchasing behavior that expects high quality, guaranteed availability and fast delivery. Meeting high expectations of customers’ initiates with proper demand management. This study focuses on demand prediction with a data-driven perspective by both leveraging machine learning techniques and identifying significant predictor variables to help fashion retailers achieve better forecast accuracy. Prediction results obtained were compared to present the benefits of machine learning approaches. The proposed approach was applied by a leading fashion retail company to forecast the demand of newly launched seasonal products without historical data. 2021-11-01T14:34:11Z 2021-11-01T14:34:11Z 2020-06-23 2021-07-21T03:26:53Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136919 en https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-020-03666-w Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature application/pdf Springer US Springer US
spellingShingle Kharfan, Majd
Chan, Vicky W. K.
Firdolas Efendigil, Tugba
A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title_full A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title_fullStr A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title_full_unstemmed A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title_short A data-driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine-learning approaches
title_sort data driven forecasting approach for newly launched seasonal products by leveraging machine learning approaches
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136919
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