An end-to-end data science pipeline for Zambian retail analytics β featuring synthetic data generation, EDA, ARIMA & XGBoost demand forecasting, RFM customer segmentation, stockout risk detection, and an executive BI dashboard. Built with Python, Pandas, Scikit-learn, XGBoost, Statsmodels & Plotly
# π Zambia National Retail Intelligence Platform
### *An End-to-End Data Science Project | Retail Analytics Β· Demand Forecasting Β· Business Intelligence*
Author: Given Chinyama Β |Β
Date: June 2026 Β |Β
LinkedIn Β |Β
GitHub
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## π Overview
Zambia's retail sector is undergoing rapid transformation β driven by urbanisation, mobile money adoption, and a growing middle class across cities like Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola, and Livingstone. Yet the vast majority of retailers still operate without data-driven insight, relying on intuition over analytics.
This project addresses that gap by building a **National Retail Intelligence Platform** β a production-grade, end-to-end data science pipeline that simulates, cleans, analyses, forecasts, and visualises Zambian retail data across 7 cities, 8 store chains, and 24 product categories.
The platform is designed to serve three distinct audiences:
| Audience | Use Case |
|---|---|
| πͺ Retailers & FMCG distributors | Reduce stockouts, optimise inventory, plan promotions |
| π Data scientists & analysts | Reproducible forecasting and segmentation pipelines |
| ποΈ Government & trade policy teams | National retail price monitoring and trade analytics |
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## β¨ Key Features
- **Realistic synthetic dataset** β 80,000 transactions across 7 Zambian cities, population-weighted and seasonally adjusted, all priced in Zambian Kwacha (ZMW)
- **Dual forecasting models** β ARIMA for seasonal trend interpretation and XGBoost for high-accuracy daily demand prediction
- **RFM customer segmentation** β Recency, Frequency, and Monetary analysis combined with K-Means clustering to identify Champions, Loyal Regulars, New Customers, and At-Risk segments
- **Stockout and overstock risk detection** β Rule-based flags combined with Z-score anomaly detection on daily revenue streams
- **Executive BI dashboard** β A 9-panel interactive Plotly dashboard covering revenue, margins, seasonality, promotions, and Yo β¦