I have a few dumb questions for people who really understand how this stuff works:

- Is prediction based on historic transaction and sales data effective? I always assumed transaction and sales data in isolation didn't contain enough information to be effective predictors of buying behavior. Is that wrong?

- How much more effective is it than a human intuitively setting a discount? I can see large retailers saving time on having to set discounts for a large number of products. Just wondering if small merchants would just be better off doing it themselves.