Complex, cannibalization-heavy assortments

At VarietyIQ, we’re obsessed with optimizing complex assortments – catalogs in categories like apparel, wine, and beauty, where many products compete for the same customer attention. In these cases, a product should only be carried if it satisfies demand that would otherwise go unmet, lifting net sales. But that kind of uplift impact is harder to measure – and far less intuitive – than a product’s quality in isolation. As a result, even experienced merchandising teams can struggle to get the full assortment mix right, leading to redundant purchases and missed opportunities to better serve customers.

By addressing these inefficiencies, VarietyIQ helps retailers to simultaneously improve customer experience and operate more efficiently.

This post kicks off a two-part series exploring the challenges and opportunities around complex assortments. Today, we’ll define what makes an assortment “complex,” explain why it’s difficult for humans to optimize without algorithmic support, and review a real-world example through this lens – Baskin-Robbins’ current lineup of ice cream flavors. In our next post, we’ll consider why some product categories support complexity while others do not.

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