Prediction of the future trend of e-commerce

Abstract: In recent years more companies have invested in electronic commerce as a result of more customers using the internet as a tool for shopping. However, the basics of marketing still apply to online stores, and thus companies need to conduct market analyses of customers and the online market to be able to successfully target customers online. In this report, we propose the use of machine learning, a tool that has received a lot of attention and positive affirmation for the ability to tackle a range of problems, to predict future trends of electronic commerce in Sweden. More precise, to predict the future share of users of electronic commerce in general and for certain demographics. We will build three different models, polynomial regression, SVR and ARIMA. The findings from the constructed forecasts were that there are differences between different demographics of customers and between groups within a certain demographic. Furthermore, the result showed that the forecast was more accurate when modelling a certain demographic than the entire population. Companies can thereby possibly use the models to predict the behaviour of certain smaller segments of the market and use that in their marketing to attract these customers.