A model to optimize rack layout in a retail store

Corinne H. Mowrey, Pratik J. Parikh and Kevin R. Gue

European Journal of Operational Research, 2018, vol. 271, issue 3, 1100-1112

Abstract: The physical layout of a retail store is known to influence the attitude and behavior of shoppers and affect store performance. An important role of the store's layout is to expose shoppers to merchandise in order to facilitate consideration and ultimately purchasing of exposed products. This work focuses on determining which rack layouts maximize exposure of products to a shopper. To do this, we introduce the retail rack layout problem (RRLP), which identifies the optimal single or multi-column rack orientations in a constrained space in order to maximize exposure to the shopper. To solve this problem, we propose a mixed-integer, non-linear optimization model, which we solve using a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Results indicate that an increase of exposure ranging from 213–226% (small head turns) and 17–18% (large head turns) over 90°-rack layouts can be achieved with angled-racks (acute or obtuse from a shopper's travel path) depending on the duration of exposure. The increase in exposure comes at the expense of loss of display space and is sensitive to the shopper's field of regard (angular limit and depth of vision). We also show that multiple competitive layout designs with 1-, 2-, and even 3-columns may exist for a given system configuration that offer similar exposure values.

Keywords: Facilities planning and design; Retail layout; Field of regard; Product exposure; Particle swarm optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221718304818
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:271:y:2018:i:3:p:1100-1112

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2018.05.062

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().