twelfth · Glossary · Category management
Assortment
Also called range
An assortment is the set of products a retailer chooses to carry in a category, for the whole chain, a cluster of stores or a single channel.
What it means for retail and category teams
Assortment decisions cover breadth (how many different needs the range serves) and depth (how many options within each need, such as sizes, flavours or pack formats). Many retailers localise the assortment by store cluster or channel, so an online range can run much deeper than a small-format store. Every added line competes for the same shelf, the same working capital and the same shopper attention.
Why it matters
The assortment sets the ceiling on what a category can earn. Too narrow and shoppers leave to buy elsewhere; too broad and slow lines tie up cash, space and supplier time while splitting demand across near-duplicates. Most other levers, from price to promotion, work inside the range the assortment allows.
Illustrative example
The business and figures are illustrative, not customer data
A hardware retailer's paint accessories bay carries 14 roller sizes. Sales show three sizes account for most of the volume, and two others are rarely bought outside one store cluster. The team keeps the three core sizes everywhere, ranges the two specialist sizes only in the cluster that buys them, and uses the space freed in other stores for a tray-and-roller kit shoppers kept asking for.
Related terms
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