
Retail Sales Prediction
Our client, a Florida-based retailer, was using qualitative techniques to forecast sales using limited available information: expert opinions and information about special events. Store sales are influenced by many more factors such as promotions, competition, school and state holidays, seasonality, locality, etc. They wanted to analyze historical data, to find patterns in the dynamics of the data like cyclical patterns, trends and growth rates. They also wanted to explore social factors influencing sales.