Forecasting Repeat Sales at CDNOW: A Case Study

Peter S. Fader and Bruce G. S. Hardie
Additional contact information
Peter S. Fader: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6371
Bruce G. S. Hardie: London Business School, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, United Kingdom

Interfaces, 2001, vol. 31, issue 3_supplement, S94-S107

Abstract: We conducted a modeling exercise in conjunction with the online music retailer CDNOW to develop a simple stochastic model of buyer behavior capable of forecasting medium-term aggregate CD purchasing by a cohort of new customers. We modeled weekly sales using a finite mixture of beta-geometric distributions with a separate time-varying component to capture nonstationarity in repeat buying. The resulting model can easily be implemented within a standard spreadsheet environment (for example, Microsoft Excel). It does a good job of describing the underlying sales patterns and produces an excellent medium-term forecast.

Keywords: MARKETING—BUYER BEHAVIOR; FORECASTING—APPLICATIONS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.31.3s.94.9683 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:31:y:2001:i:3_supplement:p:s94-s107

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().