Predicting Credit Card Sales: A Comprehensive Guide to Quarterly Forecasting
Understanding the Key Components of Credit Card Sales Time Series
Credit card sales data typically exhibits several important patterns that must be accounted for in your forecasting model:
- Trend Component: The long-term direction of sales (growth or decline)
- Seasonal Components:
- Weekly Seasonality: Different spending patterns by day of week
- Monthly Seasonality: Monthly payment cycles and salary effects
- Quarterly Seasonality: Business cycles and quarterly reporting effects
- Annual Seasonality: Yearly patterns like holiday shopping seasons
- Holiday Effects: Specific spikes or drops around holidays
- Special Events: Sales, promotions, or other company-specific events
Data Preparation and Exploration
Before building your model, you should: