Store space is limited and one of the most costly resources of retailers. Retailers have to apportion available store space among the individual product categories of a store and therefore assign a certain share of shelf space to each category. Assigning more shelf space to one category requires reducing the number of shelves for another category as total space is limited. Reducing available shelf space in turn decreases assortment size and lessens the presentation quantity of products and vice versa. Both affect the demand of products and ultimately the profitability of the entire category such that the profit contribution of a category depends on its shelf size. This interrelation between category sizes and store profits needs to be taken into account for the shelf space assignment to categories and the space allocation for individual products.

We introduce a store-wide shelf space model that optimizes shelf space assignment for categories based on the profit contribution of the corresponding product allocations. We decompose the problem into two hierarchically interlinked subproblems and show that the solution approach suggested works efficiently and provides solutions that are applicable to large problems in retail practice. In a case study with a major European retailer, we show that profits at stores can be improved by 3.2% using our approach. Further, we use simulated data to generalize the findings and derive managerial insights.

商店空间有限，是零售商最昂贵的资源之一。零售商必须在商店的各个产品类别之间分配可用的商店空间，并因此将一定份额的货架空间分配给每个类别。由于总空间有限，将更多的货架空间分配给一个类别需要减少另一类别的货架数量。减少可用的货架空间又会减少分类尺寸并减少产品的展示数量，反之亦然。两者都会影响产品的需求，并最终影响整个类别的利润，因此，类别的利润贡献取决于其货架大小。对于类别的货架空间分配和单个产品的空间分配，必须考虑类别大小与商店利润之间的这种相互关系。

我们引入了整个商店的货架空间模型，该模型基于相应产品分配的利润贡献来优化类别的货架空间分配。我们将该问题分解为两个层次结构互连的子问题，并表明建议的解决方案有效地起作用，并且提供了适用于零售实践中的大问题的解决方案。在与一家欧洲主要零售商的案例研究中，我们表明，使用我们的方法可以使商店的利润提高3.2％。此外，我们使用模拟数据来概括研究结果并得出管理见解。