Assortment Management & Space Optimization

The main motivation of this study is to collect and discover different techniques and methods on space management, assortment and merchandising, which is a relatively undiscovered topic due to the various factors that have influence on the calculation of space. Hence, space elasticity and the relative productivities can differ according to various conditions and can be calculated differently by factoring environmental variables. Considering different approaches and methods, this thesis will combine different views and perspectives to formulate one top-down approach for shelf space management focusing on the particular case of LEGO toy products. While doing so, it will highlight the importance for suppliers no matter which category of analyzing the space in different conditions and give flexible tailor-made assortment and merchandising recommendations with consideration of the characteristics of different retail channels, size of store and different shopper backgrounds.Furthermore, the thesis will combine qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze and calculate the impact of these methods particularly on the case study. The results and conclusions along with the recommended methods can inspire and help suppliers, retailers and other fellow researchers who are also cultivating in different product categories.