Comparison Analysis of Facebook's Prophet, Amazon's DeepARr+ and CNN-QR Algorithms for Successful Real-World Sales Forecasting

Abstract

By successfully solving the problem of forecasting, the processes in the work of various companies are optimized and savings are achieved. In this process, the analysis of time series data is of particular importance. Since the creation of Facebook’s Prophet, and Amazon’s DeepAR+ and CNN-QR forecasting models, algorithms have attracted a great deal of attention. The paper presents the application and comparison of the above algorithms for sales forecasting in distribution companies. A detailed comparison of the performance of algorithms over real data with different lengths of sales history was made. The results show that Prophet gives better results for items with a longer history and frequent sales, while Amazon’s algorithms show superiority for items without a long history and items that are rarely sold.