Product Demand Forecasting with Neural Networks and Macroeconomic Indicators: A Comparative Study among Product Categories

In the fiercely competitive global corporate arena, the intricacies of demand forecasting in the retail sector have become a focal point. While previous research has delved into various methodologies, it consistently overlooks the distinct performances of forecasting models within different retail product categories. Understanding these variations in prediction performances is pivotal, enabling firms to fine-tune forecasting models for each category. This study bridges this gap by scrutinizing the prediction performances of models tailored to different product categories. Building on recent research, we incorporate external macroeconomic indicators like the Consumer Price Index, Consumer Sentiment Index, and unemployment rate, alongside time series data of retail sales spanning various categories. This amalgamated dataset is employed to train a Long Short Term Memory model, projecting future demand across product categories. We further extend the analysis by identifying features that contribute most towards explaining product demand and quantifying their strength. The fitted models yield comprehensive insights into their performances and pinpoint the product categories warranting more focused model development.