Can I use survival analysis model to predict probability of an item sold
You can. You should be able to create a survival function for each type of item to give a breakdown of the probability of it being sold by that point in it's lifecycle.
An issue you might run into is that the interpretation of the survival function is not the same as your outputted probability in the classification problem. In the classification problem you are given a window: &quot;I predict that this item will be sold within X days&quot; (determined by your &quot;reasonable amount of time&quot; window). The survival analysis curve however will only tell you the probability of your item being sold/not-sold at this point in time relative to it hitting the shelves. If someone asks you &quot;when will this item be sold?&quot; or &quot;will this item be sold this week&quot; you might have an easier time answering this question via the classification framework in comparison to the survival analysis approach.
In my experience: if you're interested in a predictive model the classification framework has more direct business application (depending on your selected window size). If you are simply looking to describe the lifecycle of your products &amp; communicate a point regarding shelf life to some target audience you can probably get by with survival analysis.