Is predicting number of sales a Regression or Classification problem

0 votes
I am a Machine Learning beginner who is currently doing Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera. In the lecture, he asked a simple question: Would you call the following a classification or regression problem?

You have a large inventory of identical items. You want to predict how many of these items will sell over the next 3 months

I chose classification since I thought we are just predicting will sell (1) or won't sell (0). But he says it is a regression problem since there are thousands of identical items and it is a continuous output. I don't understand how it is a continuous output. Looks to me like a discrete output having thousands of values. Can someone explain this to me?
Feb 25, 2022 in Machine Learning by Nandini
• 5,480 points
1,303 views

1 answer to this question.

0 votes

The output will be discrete but the question asked about prediction  has to be understood carefully.

The main difference that makes this a regression problem rather than a classification problem is that the output from the classification is limited to some (usually a few) predefined values ​​/ levels. It's easy to see here that  the sales quantity  can be  any (integer) value in principle, for example it makes no sense  to consider the values ​​14 and 15 as different classes.
It is also helpful to think of the classification output as  a category that is generally unordered. From this point of view, the difference between 14 and 15 can be thought of as the difference between 14 and 764 (these are just different categories). Intuitively, because we are interested in the exact quantity sold, these differences are so different that it is clear that we mis-predicted "14" instead of "15" instead of "764"

answered Feb 25, 2022 by Dev
• 6,000 points

Related Questions In Machine Learning

0 votes
1 answer
0 votes
1 answer

How to know if a problem is solvable by machine learning?

Transitioning from learning machine learning algorithms through ...READ MORE

answered Dec 13, 2023 in Machine Learning by anonymous
• 1,420 points
770 views
+1 vote
2 answers

Is Sophia Humanoid ‘Limited Memory’ type of AI or ‘Reactive Machines’ type of AI?

Sophia is basically a chatbot with a ...READ MORE

answered Jan 29, 2020 in Machine Learning by Rakshi
2,706 views
0 votes
2 answers

What is supervised learning?

Supervised learning is the machine learning task ...READ MORE

answered Sep 3, 2019 in Data Analytics by anonymous
• 33,030 points
1,837 views
0 votes
1 answer
0 votes
1 answer
0 votes
1 answer

Are there any python libraries that do multiple regressions?

You can use sklearn.linear_model.LinearRegression. Something like this: from ...READ MORE

answered May 22, 2019 in Machine Learning by Vinay
920 views
0 votes
1 answer
webinar REGISTER FOR FREE WEBINAR X
REGISTER NOW
webinar_success Thank you for registering Join Edureka Meetup community for 100+ Free Webinars each month JOIN MEETUP GROUP