Review on Assortment Problems in Retailing Supply Chain Management

Abstract

In this paper, we are aimed at reviewing assortment problems integrating pricing strategies, inventory levels and distribution network planning in retail. Through the literature study, we present a comprehensive and updated review and put forward the future directions for assortment study. The main methodology we used is literature study. We classified related papers and reviewed them by different themes. We find that a great number of existing papers related to assortment problems mostly combine the problem of pricing decision, inventory control and distribution design. However, those papers tend to study two or three points above. In other words, there is no literature studying all points simultaneously. Given our findings, we finally propose that it is innovative and valuable to put efforts to study assortment problems combined with pricing, inventory and distribution decisions.