Allocating commodity shelves in a supermarket

A system for allocating commodity shelves in a supermarket, comprising:

• a shopping path obtaining device, configured to obtain shopping paths of customers in a supermarket;
• a classifying device, configured to classify the customers according to a predetermined standard, into a plurality of customer classes;
• a frequent shopping path determining device, comprising a processor on a computer, configured to, based on the shopping paths of the customers, determine one or more shopping paths adopted by more customers in each class of customers of the plurality of customer classes as frequent shopping paths of a class of customers of the plurality of customer classes;
• a see-buy rate calculating device configured to calculate a see-buy rate of a commodity for each class of customers based on shopping lists and the shopping paths of the customers, wherein the see-buy rate of the commodity for the class of customers refers to a probability to purchase the commodity when it is seen by the class of customers;
• a commodity shelf determining device, configured to, for a set of commodities, calculate a location for a shelf where each commodity in the set of commodities is located when total expected benefits for the set of commodities are maximized during a certain period of time,
• wherein the total expected benefits include a sum of an expected benefit for each commodity of the plurality of commodities based on the see-buy rate and the frequent shopping path(s) when each commodity of the plurality of commodities is located in its own shelf, and
• when placing an ith commodity on a jth shelf, an expected benefits P (i, j) based on the see-buy rate and the frequent shopping path(s) are:
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• wherein k denotes the class of customers, Rbs(i, k) denotes a see-buy rate of the ith commodity for the kth class of customers, and num(k,j) denotes numbers of actual shopping paths corresponding to the frequent shopping path(s) of the kth class of customers adjacent to shelf j within a certain period of time, and profit (i) denotes a unit profit of the commodity i.