Monthly demand data at Home Depot for Christmas trees are as follows:

1) Use simple exponential smoothing to estimate demand for Period #13. For this model, use alpha=0.35 and the level at Period 0 L₀ = 2,655.

2) Use Holts model to estimate demand for Period #13. For this model, use alpha = 0.05, beta = 0.10, the level at Period 0 L₀ = 1962, and the trend in Period 0 T₀ = 106.7 (both L₀ and T₀ are obtained using regression).

3) Which of the two methods do you prefer? Why?

uploading your Excel spreadsheet

Period 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Demand (units) 2000 2113 2287 2445 2558 2648 2755 2820 2915 3008 3107 3208