Retailers face a formidable challenge of ensuring that they have optimum levels of inventory for goods that are perishable. This is because these goods have short shelf life without any salvage value and can hurt the profitability of the retailers significantly. It therefore becomes critical for the retailers to know accurate forecasts for perishable items such as fresh milk and yoghurt. These subclasses also drive footfall into the retail stores and hence it is important to maintain high levels of service for these products.

We have chosen to forecast unit sales for two product classes - Fresh Milk and Dahi-Yoghurt. The rationale behind choosing these 2 product classes is that typically sales of these product classes would have correlation and henceforth provide additional insights.

The sales data available from retail store for “Yakult Probiotic drink 325 ml” and “SarasDahi 200gm” from class “Dahi and Yoghurt” and “AmulTaaza 500 ml” from class “Fresh Milk” is aggregated at a daily, weekly and monthly level, to visualize any trends or recognizable patterns.