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Demand forecasting in retail operations for fashionable products: methods, practices, and real case study

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Abstract

Demand forecasting for the fashionable products is still a difficult task for both academia and industry regardless of how many effective approaches have been investigated and studied in the literature. The arriving of big data era leads to a round of revolution on the demand forecasting for the fashionable products, and at the same time, it makes a great challenge to traditional forecasting methods and inventory planning. In this study, we firstly conduct a comprehensive literature review on demand forecasting methods for the fashionable products and find out the challenges of the traditional forecasting methods. Then, we examine how fashion retailer tackles the future demand forecasting and inventory planning problem in practice via a real-world case study. Finally, an in-depth analysis and future research directions are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The real name of the company is masked and replaced by Company A.

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Funding

Funding was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71801054).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong University of Technology, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City, China

    Shuyun Ren

  2. Division of Business, Hong Kong Community College, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Hau-Ling Chan

  3. SHU-UTS SILC Business School, Shanghai University, Jiading District, Shanghai City, China

    Tana Siqin

Authors
  1. Shuyun Ren
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  2. Hau-Ling Chan
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  3. Tana Siqin
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Correspondence to Hau-Ling Chan.

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Appendix

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Fig. 1
figure 1

Demand forecasting approach of Company A

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Ren, S., Chan, HL. & Siqin, T. Demand forecasting in retail operations for fashionable products: methods, practices, and real case study. Ann Oper Res 291, 761–777 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03148-8

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