Retail product assortment generation and recommendation

An apparatus, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith and executable by the at least one processor, the computer readable program code comprising:
• computer readable program code configured to receive information for each of a plurality of products for possible sale at a retail store;
• for each of the plurality of products:
• computer readable program code configured to predict a demand for the product if included within the retail store for sale;
• computer readable program code configured to calculate a sustainability score, wherein the sustainability score is based upon a material composition of the product;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to compute a similarity score, wherein the computing comprises comparing pairs of products within the plurality of products, wherein one of the products within each of the pairs is the product;
• computer readable program code configured to generate a plurality of assortment choices from the plurality of products, wherein each of the plurality of assortment choices comprises a subset of the plurality of products and has a corresponding assortment demand value, assortment sustainability score, and assortment similarity score, wherein the generating comprises utilizing a multi-objective formulation based upon the predicted demand for each of the plurality of products, the calculated sustainability score for each of the plurality of products, and the computed similarity score for each of the plurality of products;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to provide the plurality of assortment choices to a user for selection of one of the plurality of assortment choices to be included within the retail store for sale.

A computer program product, comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code executable by a processor and comprising:
• computer readable program code configured to receive information for each of a plurality of products for possible sale at a retail store;
• for each of the plurality of products:
• computer readable program code configured to predict a demand for the product if included within the retail store for sale;
• computer readable program code configured to calculate a sustainability score, wherein the sustainability score is based upon a material composition of the product;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to compute a similarity score, wherein the computing comprises comparing pairs of products within the plurality of products, wherein one of the products within each of the pairs is the product;
• computer readable program code configured to generate a plurality of assortment choices from the plurality of products, wherein each of the plurality of assortment choices comprises a subset of the plurality of products and has a corresponding assortment demand value, assortment sustainability score, and assortment similarity score, wherein the generating comprises utilizing a multi-objective formulation based upon the predicted demand for each of the plurality of products, the calculated sustainability score for each of the plurality of products, and the computed similarity score for each of the plurality of products;
• and
• computer readable program code configured to provide the plurality of assortment choices to a user for selection of one of the plurality of assortment choices to be included within the retail store for sale.