Written by Lina Altenburg, Ph.D. candidate at KU Leuven (Belgium)
How do retail stores communicate their assortment to customers? Even though online and omnichannel retailing is all the rage, physical communication tools remain relevant. One of those tools is print store flyers, which feature a selected set of products. Given the constraints of these flyers in terms of size and pages, retailers need to optimize them and decide on which and how many product categories to include and how much space to allocate to each category.
I had the chance to talk to Saeid Vafainia (ESCP Business School) and Robert Rooderkerk (Erasmus University Rotterdam) about their recent IJRM paper “Decision support system development for store flyer space allocation: Leveraging own- and cross-category sales effects”, which is also co-authored by Els Breugelmans (KU Leuven) and Tammo Bijmolt (University of Groningen). The key takeaway from their paper: Tell a focused and thematic story (with only a few products from a few categories) rather than bombard the customer with everything you have to offer. However, we talked about much more than just the results of their study.
Robert and Saeid in Paris celebrating the acceptance of their paper.
So what else?
During the review process, the paper took an almost 360° turn. It started as Saeid’s third PhD project and in the beginning focused solely on describing the effect of space allocation in-store flyers and cross-category effects (i.e., how the categories included in the flyer impact the sales of other included and not included categories). However, the reviewers and the IJRM review team unanimously asked for the addition of a normative perspective.
“What was missing was an answer to the question ‘So what's next?’. Even if you identify the cross-category effect, how can this change the decision of a manager? That was the point that the paper changed from the initial idea to what it is now. And this was also the point that Robert joined the project.”
Saeid Vafainia
In response, the authors developed a decision support system that maximizes the store flyers' sales impact by optimizing the category selection and space allocation. The system also incorporates own as well as cross-category sales effects and handles strategic limitations (e.g., seasonal variation and reducing the product overlap of flyers within the same season). With this new system, the authors can optimize the retailer’s store flyer (in their case, leading to a 13% sales improvement!) within mere minutes.
The cherry on the cake
Initially, the results of the research were rather limited to the specific retail setting (a showcase flyer for a furniture and home goods retailer). While rich, interesting, and relevant, the generalizability of the results was limited. However, the authors decided to make the code for their decision support system available under an open science framework (available here). This provides a kickstart to other researchers who are interested in solving product selection and space allocation problems. And it also increased the paper’s generalizability and research impact.
Finding your matching domino
I find it fascinating to learn about the dynamics in IJRM author teams. In this case, the dynamics Saeid and Robert discussed struck me especially. Not only because it involved four researchers at different career levels and universities, but because they complemented each other nicely. Or, to make use of Robert’s metaphor: the domino tiles matched very well.
“I think selecting your co-authors is really, really important and it's very difficult. Your co-authors should be not too similar but also not too dissimilar. You can compare it to a game of dominos. At least half of the dominoes need to be the same in order to make a connection. But I believe the other sides of the domino tiles should be different.”
Robert Rooderkerk
What united the author team was their expertise and excitement for retailing research. However, they each brought a unique half domino-tile to the team. This is how Saeid and Robert describe the team:
Tammo – the visionary: big picture perspective, very strong conceptually and methodologically, with a lot of experience in publishing in different streams
Els – the sharp-eyed: attention to detail, very deep knowledge of marketing effectiveness and good at connecting different parts (e.g., literature to model results)
Saeid – the driver: doing the heavy lifting of the project, keeping the group together, ensuring the needed parts are there
Robert - the architect: driving force behind the decision support system and the open-science strategy
Read the paper
Interested in reading all the details about store flyer space allocation and/or the decision support system? Read the full paper here.
Want to cite the paper?
Vafainia, Saeid, Robert P. Rooderkerk, Els Breugelmans, Tammo H.A. Bijmolt (2024). Decision support system development for store flyer space allocation: Leveraging own-and cross-category sales effects. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Meet the authors
Saeid Vafainia:
Assistant Professor of Marketing, ESCP Business School in Paris (France)
If you were not in academia, what would you be?
I worked for a while in sales, as a sales expert. I liked it! Especially the human interaction and the psychology behind these interactions. So, I could see myself also working as a sales manager. But something was missing. I was very curious about understanding the way we make decisions. For example, why do we pick this product instead of that one. Understanding the rationale behind this is actually what got me interested in marketing.
What drives you to do the research/work that you do?
What I really like about academia is having the chance to go in-depth. In academia, you have this specific question, and you have the opportunity to study it in depth and you can invest a lot of time in this. Also, in the beginning, you might have some hypotheses, but you never know the answer for sure. This uncertainty is interesting. And during the journey of understanding this uncertainty, going step by step, you can learn a lot and challenge yourself. And there is always a next step, always something else you can explore. Our research journey is never-ending, for there are always new questions…
Robert Rooderkerk:
Associate Professor of Operations Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
If you were not in academia, what would you be?
If I had to envision myself in an alternative world, my job would be related to books. I like books a lot and I read a lot of novels. I also like travelling a lot and I like music a lot. Recently I got into books about architecture. So I could picture myself running a nice bookstore. Saeid’s wife would have a branch of her coffee place in the store. The store would have quirky architectural touches and good music. And the books would be organized based on travel destinations. So that, when I am travelling, I can buy books set in that region where I am going to.
What drives you to do the research/work that you do?
I really like retail. I am passionate about retail and I read a lot about retail. I always have to restrain myself from taking retail books on holiday because then it still feels like I am working. And retail is everywhere. When I teach a retail course it is always fascinating to see when the students realize how much is related to retailing. In my view, retailing is this beautiful blend of art and science which I don’t think any other sector has. And it is a sector with a massive amount of people working in it. Right after healthcare, and in some countries the military, it is the second or third largest employer.
This article was written by
Lina Altenburg
Ph.D. candidate at the KU Leuven (Belgium)
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