Erin Vandahl

To be competitive in the retailing industry, retailers depend heavily on sales forecasting models to make educated business decisions. While many retailers can depend on a single forecasting model, the literature that suggests that having separate sales forecasting models reflecting the urbanity of specialty retailer markets will improve model accuracy. This research aimed to detemline the theoretical role of urbanity in retail sales forecasting by delimiting urbanity for an anonymous Canadian retailer. Several sales forecasting models were developed for comparison. The models used the gross leasable area of the mall where the stores were located or the trade area populations for delimiting urbanity. Separate models reflecting individual levels of urbanity were compared with single models for all stores where urbanityrelated variables had been included or excluded. The study found that, while the role of urbanity in retail sales forecasting cannot be conclusively determined, there is strong evidence that including urbanity in forecasts will improve the accuracy of the models.