Patent ID: 8417559

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating selection of an assortment of products to offer for sale, the method being implemented by one or more data processors and comprising: receiving, by at least one data processor, transaction data representing characteristics of a plurality of commercial transactions; receiving, by at least one data processor, product attribute data representing attributes for at least a first product of a plurality of products and representing attributes for a second product of the plurality of products; determining, by at least one data processor, distance between each pair of products of the plurality of products to form a distance matrix characterizing a plurality of distances, the distance characterizing a measure of closeness between each respective pair of products in terms of substitutability; transforming, by at least one data processor, the distance matrix to a probability matrix, one or more elements in the probability matrix characterizing a probability of purchase of a corresponding second product when a corresponding first product is desired but unavailable, other elements in the probability matrix being zero, the zero elements characterizing that at least one product of a corresponding pair of products is not selected; determining, by at least one data processor and based on the probability matrix, transferred profits associated with transfer of demand from one product to another product; determining, by at least one data processor, integrated profits by adding the transferred profits and direct profits; and optimizing, by at least one data processor, the integrated profits to maximize a total net profit obtained using the integrated profits, the optimizing providing an assortment of products.