IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v38y2022i4p1500-1506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the representativeness of the M5 competition data

Author

Listed:
  • Theodorou, Evangelos
  • Wang, Shengjie
  • Kang, Yanfei
  • Spiliotis, Evangelos
  • Makridakis, Spyros
  • Assimakopoulos, Vassilios

Abstract

The main objective of the M5 competition, which focused on forecasting the hierarchical unit sales of Walmart, was to evaluate the accuracy and uncertainty of forecasting methods in the field to identify best practices and highlight their practical implications. However, can the findings of the M5 competition be generalized and exploited by retail firms to better support their decisions and operation? This depends on the extent to which M5 data is sufficiently similar to unit sales data of retailers operating in different regions selling different product types and considering different marketing strategies. To answer this question, we analyze the characteristics of the M5 time series and compare them with those of two grocery retailers, namely Corporación Favorita and a major Greek supermarket chain, using feature spaces. Our results suggest only minor discrepancies between the examined data sets, supporting the representativeness of the M5 data.

Suggested Citation

  • Theodorou, Evangelos & Wang, Shengjie & Kang, Yanfei & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Makridakis, Spyros & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "Exploring the representativeness of the M5 competition data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1500-1506.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:38:y:2022:i:4:p:1500-1506
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.07.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207021001175
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.07.006?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. Güngör, Bekir Oray & Ertuğrul, H. Murat & Soytaş, Uğur, 2021. "Impact of Covid-19 outbreak on Turkish gasoline consumption," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Petropoulos, Fotios & Trapero, Juan R., 2014. "Improving forecasting by estimating time series structural components across multiple frequencies," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 291-302.
    3. Syntetos, Aris A. & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos & Boylan, John E., 2010. "Judging the judges through accuracy-implication metrics: The case of inventory forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 134-143, January.
    4. Hyndman, Rob J., 2020. "A brief history of forecasting competitions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 7-14.
    5. Bojer, Casper Solheim & Meldgaard, Jens Peder, 2021. "Kaggle forecasting competitions: An overlooked learning opportunity," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 587-603.
    6. 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.
    7. Syntetos, Aris A. & Boylan, John E., 2005. "The accuracy of intermittent demand estimates," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 303-314.
    8. Ma, Shaohui & Fildes, Robert, 2021. "Retail sales forecasting with meta-learning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(1), pages 111-128.
    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. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Kouloumos, Andreas & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Makridakis, Spyros, 2020. "Are forecasting competitions data representative of the reality?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 37-53.
    11. Kang, Yanfei & Hyndman, Rob J. & Smith-Miles, Kate, 2017. "Visualising forecasting algorithm performance using time series instance spaces," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 345-358.
    12. 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.
    13. Alireza Pooya & Morteza Pakdaman & Lotfi Tadj, 2019. "Exact and approximate solution for optimal inventory control of two-stock with reworking and forecasting of demand," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 333-346, June.
    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. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "Predicting/hypothesizing the findings of the M5 competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1337-1345.
    4. 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.
    5. Kang, Yanfei & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Petropoulos, Fotios & Athiniotis, Nikolaos & Li, Feng & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Déjà vu: A data-centric forecasting approach through time series cross-similarity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 719-731.
    6. 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.
    7. Fotios Petropoulos & Evangelos Spiliotis, 2021. "The Wisdom of the Data: Getting the Most Out of Univariate Time Series Forecasting," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-20, June.
    8. Wang, Xiaoqian & Hyndman, Rob J. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2023. "Forecast combinations: An over 50-year review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1518-1547.
    9. Semenoglou, Artemios-Anargyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Makridakis, Spyros & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Investigating the accuracy of cross-learning time series forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1072-1084.
    10. Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David F. Hendry, 2021. "Forecasting Principles from Experience with Forecasting Competitions," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, February.
    11. Zhang, Bohan & Kang, Yanfei & Panagiotelis, Anastasios & Li, Feng, 2023. "Optimal reconciliation with immutable forecasts," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(2), pages 650-660.
    12. 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.
    13. Kolassa, Stephan, 2022. "Commentary on the M5 forecasting competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1562-1568.
    14. Bojer, Casper Solheim & Meldgaard, Jens Peder, 2021. "Kaggle forecasting competitions: An overlooked learning opportunity," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 587-603.
    15. 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.
    16. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Makridakis, Spyros & Kaltsounis, Anastasios & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Product sales probabilistic forecasting: An empirical evaluation using the M5 competition data," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    17. Wellens, Arnoud P. & Udenio, Maxi & Boute, Robert N., 2022. "Transfer learning for hierarchical forecasting: Reducing computational efforts of M5 winning methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1482-1491.
    18. Fotios Petropoulos & Enno Siemsen, 2023. "Forecast Selection and Representativeness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2672-2690, May.
    19. Qi, Lingzhi & Li, Xixi & Wang, Qiang & Jia, Suling, 2023. "fETSmcs: Feature-based ETS model component selection," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1303-1317.
    20. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2019. "Tales from tails: On the empirical distributions of forecasting errors and their implication to risk," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 687-698.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forecasting competitions; M5; Time series visualization; Time series features; Retail sales forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:38:y:2022:i:4:p:1500-1506. 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.