Abstract:

It is important to predict the income/sales of a business in its future investment/plans. It is one of the inputs of the iron-steel production company in the manufacturing industry with its products. Periods of economic recession/ depression may affect product demands in many industries. The study aims to analyze the differences in the sales amounts of the iron-steel businesses during the pandemic period, to model the factors effective in sales, and to present the results to decision-makers/researchers. During the pandemic period, it is seen that the product prices of the iron-steel business decreased in general and their sales increased. Since the company products are known to provide raw materials to the production enterprises, these production enterprises can be interpreted as taking advantage of the falling prices in this period when the production slows down and strengthen their raw material stocks. The fact that there are quite a few studies in the relevant literature on the sale of iron-steel enterprises, sales forecasting/modeling increases the importance of the studies to be carried out in the field, although the difficulties in variables determination for the regression model. According to the regression models, it can be concluded that the product's price and the variables of "purchasing managers index" determine the sales. The fact that there are few variables in the final models, that three of the five models are acceptable, and, contrary to the economic theory, the relationship between the price-sales volume in both models is positive, led to the thought of being cautious about the results obtained, and it is suggested to investigate nonlinear models with new variables.

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