Interpretable machine learning for demand modeling with high-dimensional data using Gradient Boosting Machines and Shapley values

Forecasting demand and understanding sales drivers are one of the most important tasks in retail analytics. However, traditionally, linear models and/or models with a small number of predictors have been predominantly used in sales modeling. Taking into account that real-world demand is naturally determined by complex substitution and complementation patterns among a large number of interrelated SKUs, nonlinear effects of prices, promotions, seasonality, as well as many other factors, their lagged values, and interactions, a realistic model has to be able to account for all that. We propose a conceptual model for sales modeling based on standard POS data available to any retailer and generate almost 500 potentially useful predictors of a focal SKU’s sales accordingly. In our comparison of three classes of models, Gradient Boosting Machines outperformed Random Forests and Elastic nets. By using interpretable machine learning methods, we came up with actionable insights related to the importance of various groups of predictors from the conceptual model, as well as demonstrated how helpful it can be for marketing managers to decompose predictions into the effects of individual regressors by using an approximation of Shapley values for feature attribution.