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Sales promotions are important in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry due to the significant spending on promotions and the fact that a large proportion of FMCG products are sold on promotion. This paper considers the problem of planning sales promotions for an FMCG product in a grocery retail setting. The category manager has to solve the promotion optimization problem (POP) for each product, i.e., how to select a posted price for each period in a finite horizon so as to maximize the retailer’s profit. Through our collaboration with Oracle Retail, we developed an optimization formulation for the POP that can be used by category managers in a grocery environment. Our formulation incorporates business rules that are relevant, in practice. We propose general classes of demand functions (including multiplicative and additive), which incorporate the post-promotion dip effect, and can be estimated from sales data. In general, the POP formulation has a nonlinear objective and is NP-hard. We then propose a linear integer programming (IP) approximation of the POP. We show that the IP has an integral feasible region, and hence can be solved efficiently as a linear program (LP). We develop performance guarantees for the profit of the LP solution relative to the optimal profit. Using sales data from a grocery retailer, we first show that our demand models can be estimated with high accuracy, and then demonstrate that using the LP promotion schedule could potentially increase the profit by 3%, with a potential profit increase of 5% if some business constraints were to be relaxed. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2016.1573

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In addition to setting price discounts, retailers need to decide how to schedule promotion vehicles, such as flyers and TV commercials. Unlike the promotion pricing problem that received great attention from both academics and practitioners, the promotion vehicle scheduling problem was largely overlooked, and our goal is to study this problem both theoretically and in practice. We model the problem of scheduling promotion vehicles to maximize profits as a nonlinear bipartite matching-type problem, where promotion vehicles should be assigned to time periods, subject to capacity constraints. Our modeling approach is motivated and calibrated using actual data in collaboration with Oracle Retail, leading us to introduce and study a class of models for which the boost effects of promotion vehicles on demand are multiplicative. From a technical perspective, we prove that the general setting considered is computationally intractable. Nevertheless, we develop approximation algorithms and propose a compact integer programming formulation. In particular, we show how to obtain a (1 − ε)-approximation using an integer program of polynomial size, and investigate the performance of a greedy procedure, both analytically and computationally. We also discuss an extension that includes cross-term effects to capture the cannibalization aspect of using several vehicles simultaneously. From a practical perspective, we test our methods on actual data through a case study, and quantify the impact of our models. Under our model assumptions and for a particular item considered in our case study, we show that a rigorous optimization approach to the promotion vehicle scheduling problem allows the retailer to increase its profit by 2% to 9%. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2926 . This paper was accepted by Yinyu Ye, optimization.

Retailers have become increasingly interested in personalizing their products and services such as promotions. For this, we need new personalized demand models. Unfortunately, social data is not available to many retailers for cost and/or privacy issues. Thus, we focus on the problem of detecting customer relationships from transactional data, and using them to target promotions to the right customers.Academic / Practical Relevance: From an academic point of view, this paper solves the novel problem of jointly detecting customer trends and using them for optimal promotion targeting. Notably, we estimate the causal customer-to-customer trend effect solely from transactional data, and target promotions for multiple items and time periods. In practice, we provide a new tool for Oracle Retail clients that personalizes promotions. Methodology:We develop a novel probabilistic demand model distinguishing between a base purchase probability, capturing factors such as price and seasonality, and a customer trend probability, capturing customer-to-customer trend effects. The estimation procedure is based on regularized bounded variables least squares and instrumental variable methods. The resulting customer trend estimates feed into the dynamic promotion targeting optimization problem, formulated as a non-linear mixed-integer optimization model.Though it is NP-hard, we propose an adaptive greedy algorithm.Results: We prove our customer-to-customer trend estimates are statistically consistent, and the adaptive greedy algorithm is provably good. Having access to Oracle Retail fashion client data, we show that our demand model reduces the WMAPE by 11% on average. Also, we provide evidence of the causality of our estimates. Finally, we demonstrate that the optimal policy increases profits by 3-11%.Managerial Implications: The demand model with customer trend and the optimization model for targeted promotions form a decision support tool for promotion planning. Next to general planning, it also helps to find important customers and target them to generate additional sales.