Repeat buyer behavior is a critical indicator of customer retention success in e-commerce platforms. However, accurately predicting repeat buyers remains a challenging problem due to the complexity of user behavior patterns and the temporal characteristics embedded in interaction data. Existing studies often focus on single modeling approaches or limited sequence exploration, resulting in insufficient comparative insight between ensemble-based machine learning and sequence-based deep learning models. Therefore, this study aims to systematically compare the performance of tree-based ensemble models (XGBoost and LightGBM) and a sequence-based deep learning model (LSTM) in predicting repeat buyers using user behavior data. To ensure fair evaluation, data preprocessing and feature engineering were carefully designed to prevent data leakage by utilizing user behavior prior to the first purchase. Model performance was evaluated using Accuracy, F1-score, and ROC–AUC metrics. Experimental results show that XGBoost and LightGBM achieve stable classification performance with accuracy values of 86.11% and 85.84%, respectively, while the LSTM model attains the highest ROC–AUC value of 0.937, indicating superior capability in capturing temporal behavioral patterns. This study provides valuable insights for e-commerce platforms seeking to optimize predictive models for repeat buyers, contributing to more effective customer retention strategies.
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