Abstract: A system analyzes past sales data to identify those product assortments that may lead to the largest sales volume for the product category. The system estimates an incremental sales volume increase associated with each of one or more product assortments. The system may further identify which assortment will result in the largest sales volume for the product category, and may generate a ranking of the one or more assortments based on their associated incremental sales volume increase.

Abstract: A system is disclosed for optimizing product merchandising area allocation. One example includes receiving inputs defining financial metrics for product categories. A linear regression model forecasts responses of the financial metrics for the product categories to endogenous variables, which include sales per merchandising area per product category per store and total sales volume per store. Each of the product categories includes a user option to select constraints for either a minimum and maximum of an area in which the product category is displayed, or a minimum and maximum change from a current area in which the product category is displayed. The system generates a merchandising plan that optimizes for the combined total of the financial metrics of the product categories in accordance with the linear regression model, including changes in merchandising area for each of a plurality of the product categories, within the selected constraints.