If you look at businesses like Amazon, Alibaba or even your local super market, it seems that the-sky-is-the-limit when it comes to assortments. While offering literally millions of different products undoubtedly gives customers plenty of choice, keeping up with these exploding ranges can prove a constant battle.
In pursuit of a unique selling point, many businesses have developed extensive assortments encompassing many thousands of SKUs. While this approach enables businesses to provide customers with a huge amount of choice, managing such a large number of items brings with it its own range of challenges.
When you consider that 80% of a business’s turnover is typically generated by just 20% of the assortment. By holding such large assortments, many businesses invest a huge amount of resources into managing thousands of items that offer limited value to the business in terms of profit but great value to the end customer. With this in mind, what can businesses do to maximise the value of their assortment without compromising their ability to meet the needs of their customers?