Volume 12, Number 2

Application of Facebook's Prophet Algorithm for Successful Sales Forecasting Based on Real-world Data

  Authors

Emir Žunić^1,2, Kemal Korjenić¹, Kerim Hodžić^2,1 and Dženana Đonko², ¹Info Studio d.o.o. Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and ²University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

  Abstract

This paper presents a framework capable of accurately forecasting future sales in the retail industry and classifying the product portfolio according to the expected level of forecasting reliability. The proposed framework, that would be of great use for any company operating in the retail industry, is based on Facebook's Prophet algorithm and backtesting strategy. Real-world sales forecasting benchmark data obtained experimentally in a production environment in one of the biggest retail companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina is used to evaluate the framework and demonstrate its capabilities in a real-world use case scenario.

  Keywords

Sales forecasting, Real-world dataset, Prophet, Backtesting, Classification