What is a Product Assortment?

The product assortment is the merchandise mix made available for customers at the store to choose and buy from.

Every retail business offers a set of products to its customers, based on the target market it is serving, and the retail category the business belongs to.

Product Assortment Planning

The process of assortment planning involves making decisions about the type of merchandise to carry, the adequate quantity to buy and the different variations for each item. This process results in creating a product mix, where different product categories contribute a certain percentage of the total product assortment.

By creating a product assortment strategy you will be answering those questions:

How many products are you going to carry?

How Many options per product?

How many pieces per size per color?

These decisions form the guidelines for the types of products to buy, using the available buying budget created through the Open to Buy process, and thereby allocating the dollar amounts into the right products that are believed to deliver the best returns for the business.

Most retailers do not manufacture their own products, and so the ability to curate an attractive mix of merchandise for the customers of the business could be a retailer’s main competitive advantage in the market.

Furthermore; making the right decisions in terms of what to carry and how much, has a big impact on the financial performance of the business, because it directly affects gross margins, and other financial ratios, such as Inventory Turns and GMROI.

More Resources

Thank you for reading this article on Product Assortment. We recommend the below free resources as well:

• Product Mix
• NOOS Merchandise
• Depth vs. Breadth
• Open to Buy Planning

Read more articles on Buying & Merchandising or join the academy for in-depth courses on the processes and reports used in managing inventory and measuring performance.