Every ecommerce business is concerned with profitability — and in order to be profitable, you need to stock the right inventory at the right locations at the right time.
One key way to achieve this is through assortment planning. Through assortment planning, businesses can strategically plan their inventory and manage their catalog around changes in demand and sales volumes throughout the year to satisfy customers and maximize profitability.
In this article, we’ll cover what assortment planning is, when to consider it, how to get started with assortment planning, and how a logistics platform like ShipBob can help you optimize your assortment planning to grow your business.
What is assortment planning?
Assortment planning is the process of choosing which “assortment” of products to sell during a certain time period, and how to allot those products between different locations and/or sales channels to maximize profits.
In other words, assortment planning is about deciding what products to sell and where to sell them based on seasonality and demand at particular locations.
For example, a clothing brand may sell bathing suits and breathable fabrics during summer, but shift to sell fleece jackets and sweaters during the winter.
Or, if one of their retail locations is in a geography that is cold and snowy for most of the year, the company may instead choose to stock that particular location with only jackets.
