Integrated retail decisions with multiple selling periods and customer segments: Optimization and insights

Integrating retail decisions on such aspects as assortment, pricing, and inventory greatly improves profitability. We examine a multi-period selling horizon where a retailer jointly optimizes assortment planning, pricing, and inventory decisions for a product line of substitutable products, in a market with multiple customer segments. Focusing on fast-moving retail products, the problem is modeled as a mixed-integer nonlinear program where demand is driven by exogenous consumer reservation prices and endogenous assortment and pricing decisions. A mixed-integer linear reformulation is developed, which enables an exact solution to large problem instances (with up to a hundred products) in manageable times. Empirical evidence is provided in support of a classical deterministic maximum-surplus consumer choice model. Computational results and managerial insights are discussed. We find that the optimal assortment and pricing decisions do not exhibit a simple, intuitive structure that could be analytically characterized, which reflects the usefulness of optimization approaches to numerically identify attractive trade-offs for the decision-maker. We also observe that suboptimal inventory policies significantly decrease profitability, which highlights the importance of integrated decision-making. Finally, we find that the seasonality of consumer preferences and supply costs present an opportunity for boosting the profit via higher inventory levels and wider assortments.