IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v40y2024i4p1467-1485.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting seasonal demand for retail: A Fourier time-varying grey model

Author

Listed:
  • Ye, Lili
  • Xie, Naiming
  • Boylan, John E.
  • Shang, Zhongju

Abstract

Seasonal demand forecasting is critical for effective supply chain management. However, conventional forecasting methods face difficulties accurately estimating seasonal variations, owing to time-varying demand trends and limited data availability. In this paper, we propose a Fourier time-varying grey model (FTGM) to tackle this issue. The FTGM builds upon grey models, which are effective with limited data, and leverages Fourier functions to approximate time-varying parameters that allow it to represent seasonal variations. A data-driven selection algorithm adaptively determines the appropriate Fourier order of the FTGM without prior knowledge of data characteristics. Using the well-known M5 competition data, we compare our model with state-of-the-art forecasting methods taken from grey models, statistical methods, and architectures of neural network-based methods. The experimental results show that the FTGM outperforms popular seasonal forecasting methods in terms of standard accuracy metrics, providing a competitive alternative for seasonal demand forecasting in retail companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Ye, Lili & Xie, Naiming & Boylan, John E. & Shang, Zhongju, 2024. "Forecasting seasonal demand for retail: A Fourier time-varying grey model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 1467-1485.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:40:y:2024:i:4:p:1467-1485
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2023.12.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207023001383
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2023.12.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter R. Winters, 1960. "Forecasting Sales by Exponentially Weighted Moving Averages," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 324-342, April.
    2. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    3. Wang, Zheng-Xin & Li, Qin & Pei, Ling-Ling, 2018. "A seasonal GM(1,1) model for forecasting the electricity consumption of the primary economic sectors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 522-534.
    4. Ivan Svetunkov & Fotios Petropoulos, 2018. "Old dog, new tricks: a modelling view of simple moving averages," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(18), pages 6034-6047, September.
    5. Hoeltgebaum, Henrique & Borenstein, Denis & Fernandes, Cristiano & Veiga, Álvaro, 2021. "A score-driven model of short-term demand forecasting for retail distribution centers," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 715-725.
    6. Theodosiou, Marina, 2011. "Forecasting monthly and quarterly time series using STL decomposition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1178-1195, October.
    7. Fildes, Robert & Kolassa, Stephan & Ma, Shaohui, 2022. "Post-script—Retail forecasting: Research and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1319-1324.
    8. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "M5 accuracy competition: Results, findings, and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1346-1364.
    9. Fildes, Robert & Ma, Shaohui & Kolassa, Stephan, 2022. "Retail forecasting: Research and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1283-1318.
    10. Vu, D.H. & Muttaqi, K.M. & Agalgaonkar, A.P. & Bouzerdoum, A., 2017. "Short-term electricity demand forecasting using autoregressive based time varying model incorporating representative data adjustment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 790-801.
    11. Holt, Charles C., 2004. "Forecasting seasonals and trends by exponentially weighted moving averages," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 5-10.
    12. Huang, Tao & Fildes, Robert & Soopramanien, Didier, 2019. "Forecasting retailer product sales in the presence of structural change," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(2), pages 459-470.
    13. Davydenko, Andrey & Fildes, Robert, 2013. "Measuring forecasting accuracy: The case of judgmental adjustments to SKU-level demand forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 510-522.
    14. Wolters, Jannik & Huchzermeier, Arnd, 2021. "Joint In-Season and Out-of-Season Promotion Demand Forecasting in a Retail Environment," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 726-745.
    15. Dekker, Mark & van Donselaar, Karel & Ouwehand, Pim, 2004. "How to use aggregation and combined forecasting to improve seasonal demand forecasts," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 151-167, July.
    16. Ehrenthal, J.C.F. & Honhon, D. & Van Woensel, T., 2014. "Demand seasonality in retail inventory management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 238(2), pages 527-539.
    17. Godahewa, Rakshitha & Bergmeir, Christoph & Webb, Geoffrey I. & Montero-Manso, Pablo, 2023. "An accurate and fully-automated ensemble model for weekly time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 641-658.
    18. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    19. Xie, Gang & Qian, Yatong & Wang, Shouyang, 2020. "A decomposition-ensemble approach for tourism forecasting," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    20. Ivan Svetunkov & John E. Boylan, 2020. "State-space ARIMA for supply-chain forecasting," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 818-827, February.
    21. Svetunkov, Ivan & Chen, Huijing & Boylan, John E., 2023. "A new taxonomy for vector exponential smoothing and its application to seasonal time series," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 964-980.
    22. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "The M5 competition: Background, organization, and implementation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1325-1336.
    23. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    24. Twumasi, Clement & Twumasi, Juliet, 2022. "Machine learning algorithms for forecasting and backcasting blood demand data with missing values and outliers: A study of Tema General Hospital of Ghana," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1258-1277.
    25. Ma, Shaohui & Fildes, Robert & Huang, Tao, 2016. "Demand forecasting with high dimensional data: The case of SKU retail sales forecasting with intra- and inter-category promotional information," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(1), pages 245-257.
    26. Holt, Charles C., 2004. "Author's retrospective on 'Forecasting seasonals and trends by exponentially weighted moving averages'," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 11-13.
    27. Zhang, Guoqiang & Eddy Patuwo, B. & Y. Hu, Michael, 1998. "Forecasting with artificial neural networks:: The state of the art," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 35-62, March.
    28. Wang, Xiaolei & Xie, Naiming & Yang, Lu, 2022. "A flexible grey Fourier model based on integral matching for forecasting seasonal PM2.5 time series," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    29. Meeran, Sheik & Jahanbin, Semco & Goodwin, Paul & Quariguasi Frota Neto, Joao, 2017. "When do changes in consumer preferences make forecasts from choice-based conjoint models unreliable?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(2), pages 512-524.
    30. Koning, Alex J. & Franses, Philip Hans & Hibon, Michele & Stekler, H.O., 2005. "The M3 competition: Statistical tests of the results," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 397-409.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Junjie & Ye, Li & Ding, Xiaoyu & Dang, Yaoguo, 2024. "A novel seasonal grey prediction model with time-lag and interactive effects for forecasting the photovoltaic power generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    2. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & de Menezes, Lilian M., 2022. "Forecasting natural gas consumption using Bagging and modified regularization techniques," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Chen, Zhi & Gaba, Anil & Tsetlin, Ilia & Winkler, Robert L., 2022. "The M5 uncertainty competition: Results, findings and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1365-1385.
    4. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2024. "On the update frequency of univariate forecasting models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 314(1), pages 111-121.
    5. Van Belle, Jente & Guns, Tias & Verbeke, Wouter, 2021. "Using shared sell-through data to forecast wholesaler demand in multi-echelon supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(2), pages 466-479.
    6. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2020. "The M4 Competition: 100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-74.
    7. Fildes, Robert & Ma, Shaohui & Kolassa, Stephan, 2022. "Retail forecasting: Research and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1283-1318.
    8. Theodosiou, Marina, 2011. "Forecasting monthly and quarterly time series using STL decomposition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1178-1195, October.
    9. Jeroen Rombouts & Marie Ternes & Ines Wilms, 2024. "Cross-Temporal Forecast Reconciliation at Digital Platforms with Machine Learning," Papers 2402.09033, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    10. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "M5 accuracy competition: Results, findings, and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1346-1364.
    11. Svetunkov, Ivan & Chen, Huijing & Boylan, John E., 2023. "A new taxonomy for vector exponential smoothing and its application to seasonal time series," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 964-980.
    12. Ma, Shaohui & Fildes, Robert, 2020. "Forecasting third-party mobile payments with implications for customer flow prediction," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 739-760.
    13. Evangelos Spiliotis & Spyros Makridakis & Artemios-Anargyros Semenoglou & Vassilios Assimakopoulos, 2022. "Comparison of statistical and machine learning methods for daily SKU demand forecasting," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 3037-3061, July.
    14. Trond Husby & Hans Visser, 2021. "Short- to medium-run forecasting of mobility with dynamic linear models," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(28), pages 871-902.
    15. Ma, Shaohui & Fildes, Robert, 2021. "Retail sales forecasting with meta-learning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(1), pages 111-128.
    16. Huber, Jakob & Stuckenschmidt, Heiner, 2020. "Daily retail demand forecasting using machine learning with emphasis on calendric special days," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1420-1438.
    17. Wang, Shengjie & Kang, Yanfei & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2024. "Combining probabilistic forecasts of intermittent demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(3), pages 1038-1048.
    18. Fildes, Robert & Kolassa, Stephan & Ma, Shaohui, 2022. "Post-script—Retail forecasting: Research and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1319-1324.
    19. Andrea Kolková & Petr Rozehnal, 2022. "Hybrid demand forecasting models: pre-pandemic and pandemic use studies," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 17(3), pages 699-725, September.
    20. Feng Xu & Mohamad Sepehri & Jian Hua & Sergey Ivanov & Julius N. Anyu, 2018. "Time-Series Forecasting Models for Gasoline Prices in China," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(12), pages 1-43, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:40:y:2024:i:4:p:1467-1485. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.