Introduction

Predicting future sales for a company is one of the most important aspects of strategic planning. And Walmart is the best example to work with as a beginner as it has the most retail data set. Also, Walmart used this sales prediction problem for recruitment purposes too. The data collected ranges from 2010 to 2012, where 45 Walmart stores across the country were included in this analysis. Each store contains several departments, and we are tasked with predicting the department-wide sales for each store. It is important to note that we also have external data available like CPI, Unemployment Rate and Fuel Prices in the region of each store which, hopefully, helps us to make a more detailed analysis.