End-to-End Machine Learning Project on Amazon Sales Data Using Python 

Machine learning projects work best when they connect theory to real business outcomes. In e-commerce, that means better revenue, smoother operations, and happier customers, all driven by data. By working with realistic datasets, practitioners learn how models turn patterns into decisions that actually matter.

This article walks through a full machine learning workflow using an Amazon sales dataset, from problem framing to a submission ready prediction file. It gives learners a clear view of how models turn insights into business value, in this article.

Understanding the problem statement

Before proceeding with the coding part, it is essential to look up to the problem statement and understand it. The dataset consists of Amazon e-commerce transactions which show authentic online shopping patterns from actual online retail activities. 

The primary objective of this project is to predict order outcomes and analyze revenue-driving factors using structured transactional data. The development process requires us to create a supervised machine learning model which learns from past transaction data to forecast results on new test datasets. 

Key Business Questions Addressed

• Which factors influence the final order amount? 
• How do discounts, taxes, and shipping costs affect revenue? 
• Can we predict order status or total transaction value accurately? 
• What insights can businesses extract to improve sales performance? 

About the dataset

The dataset consists of 100,000 e-commerce transactions which follow Amazon’s transaction style and include 20 organized data fields. The synthetic data exhibits authentic customer behavior patterns together with actual business operation processes. 

The data set contains information about price changes across different product types and customer age groups and their payment options and their order tracking statuses. The data set contains properties which make it suitable for machine learning and analytical work and dashboard development. 

Load essential Python Libraries

To work on the model development process first it requires essential Python library imports to handle data work. The combination of Pandas and NumPy will enable us to perform both data handling tasks and mathematical calculations. Our visualization needs will be fulfilled through the use of Matplotlib and Seaborn. Scikit-learn provides functions for preprocessing and ML algorithms. Here is the typical set of imports: 

import pandas as pd 
import numpy as np 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt 
import seaborn as sns 
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split 
from sklearn.preprocessing import LabelEncoder 
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier 
from sklearn.metrics import classification_report, accuracy_score

The libraries enable us to perform four main activities which include loading CSV data, executing data cleansing and transformation processes, using charts for trend analysis, and building a classification model. 

Load the datasets

We will import data into a Pandas dataFrame after we complete our environment setup. The raw CSV file undergoes transformation through this step into an analyzable and programmatically manipulatable format. 

df = pd.read_csv("Amazon.csv") 

print("Shape:", df.shape)

Shape: (100000, 20) 

We need to check the data structure after loading because we need confirmation that it was imported correctly. The dataset dimensions are checked while we search for any initial problems that affect data quality. 

print("\nMissing values:\n", df.isna().sum()) 

df.head()

Missing values: 

OrderID      0 
OrderDate    0 
CustomerID   0 
CustomerName 0 
ProductID    0 
ProductName  0 
Category     0 
Brand        0 
Quantity     0 
UnitPrice    0 
Discount     0 
Tax          0 
ShippingCost 0 
TotalAmount  0 
PaymentMethod 0 
OrderStatus  0 
City         0 
State        0 
Country      0 
SellerID     0 

dtype: int64

Data Preprocessing

1. Decomposing Date Features 

Models cannot do math on a string like “2023-01-31”. The two elements “Month: 1” and “Year: 2023” create essential numerical attributes which can detect seasonal patterns including holiday sales.  

df["OrderDate"] = pd.to_datetime(df["OrderDate"], errors="coerce") 
df["OrderYear"] = df["OrderDate"].dt.year
df["OrderMonth"] = df["OrderDate"].dt.month 
df["OrderDay"] = df["OrderDate"].dt.day

We have successfully extracted three new features: OrderYear, OrderMonth, and OrderDay. The model learns patterns which show “December brings higher sales” and “weekend days produce increased sales”.  

2. Dropping Irrelevant Features 

The model requires only specific columns. The unique ID identifiers (OrderID, CustomerID) do not provide predictive information which leads to model training data memorization through overfitting. We also dropped OrderDate since we just extracted its useful parts.  

cols_to_drop = [ 
   "OrderID", 
   "CustomerID", 
   "CustomerName", 
   "ProductID", 
   "ProductName", 
   "SellerID", 
   "OrderDate",   # already decomposed 
] 

df = df.drop(columns=cols_to_drop)

The dataframe now contains only essential elements which create predictive value. The model now detects common patterns through product category and tax rates while we remove specific customer ID information which could create “leakage” and noise. 

3. Handling Missing Values 

The initial check showed no missing values but we need our systems to handle real-world conditions. The model will crash if upcoming data contains missing information. We implement a safety net by filling gaps with the median (for numbers) or “Unknown” (for text). 

print("\nMissing values after transformations:\n", df.isna().sum())

# If any missing values in numeric columns, fill with median
numeric_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=["int64", "float64"]).columns.tolist()

for col in numeric_cols:
    if df[col].isna().sum() > 0:
        df[col] = df[col].fillna(df[col].median())

Category        0
Brand           0
Quantity        0
UnitPrice       0
Discount        0
Tax             0
ShippingCost    0
TotalAmount     0
PaymentMethod   0
OrderStatus     0
City            0
State           0
Country         0
OrderYear       0
OrderMonth      0
OrderDay        0
dtype: int64

# For categorical columns, fill with "Unknown"
categorical_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=["object"]).columns.tolist()

for col in categorical_cols:
    df[col] = df[col].fillna("Unknown")

print("\nFinal dtypes after cleaning:\n")

Category        object
Brand           object
Quantity        int64
UnitPrice       float64
Discount        float64
Tax             float64
ShippingCost    float64
TotalAmount     float64
PaymentMethod   object
OrderStatus     object
City            object
State           object
Country         object
OrderYear       int32
OrderMonth      int32
OrderDay        int32
dtype: object

The pipeline is now bulletproof. The final dtypes check confirms that our data is fully prepped: all categorical variables are objects (ready for encoding) and all numerical variables are int32 or float64 (ready for scaling). 

Exploratory data analysis (EDA)

The Data Analysis process begins with our preliminary examination of data which we treat as an interview process to learn about the data’s characteristics. Our investigation includes three main elements which we use to identify patterns and outliers and examine distributional characteristics. 

Statistical Summary: We need to understand the mathematical properties of our numerical columns. Are the prices reasonable? Are there any negative values that exist in prohibited areas? 

# 2. Basic Data Understanding / EDA (lightweight) 
print("\nDescriptive stats (numeric):\n") 

df.describe()

The descriptive statistics table provides critical context: 

• Quantity: The measurement goes from 1 to 5 with three as its average value. Consumers who shop at retail stores tend to show this behavior which businesses use for their B2B purchases. 
• UnitPrice: The price ranges between 5.00 and 599.99 which shows that there exists multiple product tiers. 

The target variable TotalAmount shows wide variance because its standard deviation approaches 724 which means our model must maintain its capacity to process transactions ranging from small purchases to maximum purchases of 3534.98. 

Categorical Analysis 

We need to know the cardinality (number of unique values) of our categorical features. The model experiences bloat and overfitting issues because high cardinality occurs when there are thousands of unique cities in the dataset. 

print("\nUnique values in some categorical columns:")

for col in ["Category", "Brand", "PaymentMethod", "OrderStatus", "Country"]:
    print(f"{col}: {df[col].nunique()} unique")

Unique values in some categorical columns: 

Category: 6 unique 
Brand: 10 unique 
PaymentMethod: 6 unique 
OrderStatus: 5 unique 
Country: 5 unique

Visualizing the Target Distribution 

The histogram shows the frequency of different transaction amounts. A smooth curve (KDE) allows us to see the density. With the curve being slightly right skewed therefore tree-based models like Random Forest handle very well. 

sns.histplot(df["TotalAmount"], kde=True)
plt.title("TotalAmount distribution")
plt.show()

The TotalAmount visualization enables us to determine whether the data exhibits any skewed distribution. The data requires a Log Transformation when it shows extreme skewness with only a few high-priced products and numerous low-cost items. 

Feature Engineering

Feature engineering develops new variables through the process of transforming existing variables to boost model performance. In Supervised Learning, we must explicitly tell the model what to predict (y) and what data to use to make that prediction (X). 

target_column = "TotalAmount"

X = df.drop(columns=[target_column])
y = df[target_column]

numeric_features = X.select_dtypes(include=["int64", "float64"]).columns.tolist()
categorical_features = X.select_dtypes(include=["object"]).columns.tolist()

print("\nNumeric features:", numeric_features)
print("Categorical features:", categorical_features)

Splitting the train and test data 

The model evaluation process requires separate data because training data cannot be used for assessment, which parallels the practice of providing students with exam answers before the test. The data distribution consists of two parts: Training Set which serves educational purposes and Test Set which verifies results. 

X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(
    X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=42
)

print("\nTrain shape:", X_train.shape, "Test shape:", X_test.shape)

Here we have used the 80-20 percent rule, which means randomly out of all the data we have 80% will be used as the train data and the rest 20% will be used to test it as the test data set. 

Build Machine Learning Model

Creating the ML pipeline would involved the following processes:

1. Creating Preprocessing Pipelines 

The raw numbers of each measurement scale differently because they include measurements that range from 1 to 5 for Quantity and from 5 to 500 for Price. The models achieve faster convergence when researchers implement data scaling techniques. One-Hot Encoding provides the necessary method to transform categorical text into numerical format. The ColumnTransformer system enables us to apply different transformation methods for every column type in our dataset. 

numeric_transformer = Pipeline(
    steps=[
        ("scaler", StandardScaler())
    ]
)

categorical_transformer = Pipeline(
    steps=[
        ("onehot", OneHotEncoder(handle_unknown="ignore"))
    ]
)

preprocessor = ColumnTransformer(
    transformers=[
        ("num", numeric_transformer, numeric_features),
        ("cat", categorical_transformer, categorical_features),
    ]
)

2. Defining the Random Forest Model 

We have selected the Random Forest Regressor for this project. The ensemble method constructs multiple decision trees which it uses to compute forecast results through prediction averaging. The system demonstrates strong robustness against overfitting problems while it excels at managing non-linear connections between variables. 

model = RandomForestRegressor(
    n_estimators=200,
    max_depth=None,
    random_state=42,
    n_jobs=-1
)

# Full pipeline
regressor = Pipeline(
    steps=[
        ("preprocessor", preprocessor),
        ("model", model),
    ]
)

We created the model with n_estimators=200 to build 200 decision trees and n_jobs=-1 to enable all CPU cores for speedier model development. The best practice for this implementation requires users to create a single Pipeline object which combines the preprocessor and model to handle their entire operational process as one unit. 

3. Training the Model 

This stage represents the primary learning process. The pipeline processes training data through transformation steps before it uses the Random Forest model on the converted data. 

regressor.fit(X_train, y_train) 

print("\nModel training complete.")

The model now understands how different input variables (Category Price Tax etc.) relate to the output variable (Total Amount). 

Make predictions on the test dataset

Now we test the model on the test data (i.e, 20,000 “unseen” records). The model performance assessment uses statistical metrics to compare its predicted outcomes (y_pred) with the actual results (y_test). 

y_pred = regressor.predict(X_test)

mae = mean_absolute_error(y_test, y_pred)
mse = mean_squared_error(y_test, y_pred)
rmse = np.sqrt(mse)
r2 = r2_score(y_test, y_pred)

print("\nTest metrics:")
print("MAE :", mae)
print("MSE :", mse)
print("RMSE:", rmse)
print("R2  :", r2)

Test metrics: 

MAE : 3.886121525000014 
MSE : 41.06268576375389 
RMSE: 6.408017303640331 
R2  : 0.99992116450905

This signifies: 

• The Mean Absolute Error (MAE) value stands at approximately 3.88. Our prediction shows an average error of $3.88. 
• The R2 Score value stands at approximately 0.9999. This is near perfect. The independent variables (Price, Tax, Shipping) almost entirely account for the Total Amount according to this result. The Total formula in synthetic financial data follows the equation Total = Price * Qty + Tax + Shipping – Discount. 

Prepare submission file

The system requires participants to present their predictions according to predetermined output specifications which must not be altered.  

submission = pd.DataFrame({ 
   "OrderID": df.loc[X_test.index, "OrderID"], 
   "PredictedTotalAmount": y_pred 
}) 

submission.to_csv("submission.csv", index=False)

The evaluation system accepts this file for direct submission while stakeholders can also receive it. 

Conclusion

This machine learning project demonstrates its complete process through demonstration of raw e-commerce transaction data transformation into useful predictive results. The structured workflow method enables you to manage actual datasets with complete assurance and understanding of the process. The success of the project depends on the five steps which include preprocessing and EDA and feature engineering and modeling. 

The project helps in developing your machine learning capabilities while training you to handle real work situations. The pipeline needs additional optimization work before it can function as a recommendation system with advanced models or deep learning techniques. 

Frequently Asked Questions