Suchergebnisse

This edited volume presents state-of-the-art research that can leverage large-scale sensory data collected in grocery/retail stores where a single customer visit may generate nearly 10,000 data points. For decades, retail shelf space optimization has been confined to the analysis of product allocation decisions over a limited number of shelves, often taken in isolation. Such models incorporated interesting concepts relating to space and cross-space elasticity in the design of planograms. Although useful, these models have not addressed the bigger picture of planning store shelf space in a more holistic manner. It is important to note that the space planning analytics in the book are particularly important in an era where e-commerce is on the rise and brick-and-mortar retailing is declining and experiencing severe crises (the retail apocalypse). This is the first research-oriented book that examines novel problems in store space analytics, triggered by modern-day sensory technologies, customer trackers, and transactional tools (point-of-sales, etc.). In fact, such transformative technologies have prompted the development of new and exciting business practices, accompanied by the need for powerful data-driven models and analyses in retail shelf space and layout planning. The book will facilitate developing algorithms and decision tools that allow a better leverage of the data collected from these mediums.

AbstractWe study a selling practice that we refer to as locational tying (LT), which seems to be gaining wide popularity among retailers. Under this strategy, a retailer "locationally ties" two complementary items that we denote by "primary" and "secondary." The retailer sells the primary item in an appropriate "department" of his or her store. To stimulate demand, the secondary item is offered in the primary item's department, where it is displayed in very close proximity to the primary item. We consider two variations of LT: In the multilocation tying strategy (LT‐M), the secondary item is offered in its appropriate department in addition to the primary item's department, whereas in the single‐location tying strategy (LT‐S), it is offered only in the primary item's location. We compare these LT strategies to the traditional independent components (IC) strategy, in which the two items are sold independently (each in its own department), but the pricing/inventory decisions can be centralized (IC‐C) or decentralized (IC‐D). Assuming ample inventory, we compare and provide a ranking of the optimal prices of the four strategies. The main insight from this comparison is that relative to IC‐D, LT decreases the price of the primary item and adjusts the price of the secondary item up or down depending on its popularity in the primary item's department. We also perform a comparative statics analysis on the effect of demand and cost parameters on the optimal prices of various strategies, and identify the conditions that favor one strategy over others in terms of profitability. Then we study inventory decisions in LT under exogenous pricing by developing a model that accounts for the effect of the primary item's stock‐outs on the secondary item's demand. We find that, relative to IC‐D, LT increases the inventory level of the primary item. We also link the profitability of different strategies to the trade‐off between the increase in demand volume of the secondary item as a result of LT and the potential increase in inventory costs due to decentralizing the inventory of the secondary item. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009

AbstractConsider a set of product variants that are differentiated by some secondary attributes such as flavor, color, or size. The retailer's problem is to jointly determine the set of variants to include in her product line ("assortment"), together with their prices and inventory levels, so as to maximize her expected profit. We model the consumer choice process using a multinomial logit choice model and consider a newsvendor type inventory setting. We derive the structure of the optimal assortment for some important special cases, including the case of horizontally differentiated items, and propose a dominance relationship for the general case that simplifies the search for an optimal assortment. We also discuss structural properties of the optimal prices. Finally, motivated by our analytical results, we propose a heuristic solution procedure, which is shown to be quite effective through a numerical study. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007