I am looking for a typical sales data set, which I can use for a time series prediction. I especially want to show how to decompose the seasonal component.

A good example would be a fictional company, or a restaurant that sells much higher volumes in the summer/ or winter.

Best regards, Francisco


The US Census Bureau provides a good data source:

U.S. Census Bureau's Monthly & Annual Retail Trade

I work at Quandl and here are some databases you might want to check out:

US Census Bureau (free) - Here are the datasets you'll see if you search for "restaurant sales" within this database:


Sales Surprises - This is a premium database with sales data for over 5000 companies, including specific restaurants.


(Full list of companies covered are listed here: https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/databases/ZSS/codes)

Hope this helps...


Sales volumes are difficult to find, explicitly broken out would be difficult, however if you look at staples such as soft drink distributors or restaurant's quarterly reports, you can get a basic break out. The first two to look at would be Coca Cola and Pepsi:

Looking on YCharts, this gives you a quick view of seasonality, but you only get ten page views before you must register.

Publicly traded restaurants can give you an idea of additional seasonal variations:

  1. Darden Restaurants
  2. McDonalds
  3. Burger King

Electronics are difficult as there is such variation

You can find the open source versions from their respective Quarterly Earnings Reports:

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