Assortment management strategies that people see: Insights from a meta-analysis of experimental research on perceived assortment variety

Abstract

Assortment “variety” is a major factor influencing consumer attraction. Brands and firms use five assortment management strategies to improve consumers’ perception of variety (size, composition, arrangement, visual layout, and textual information). This paper breaks down Perceived Assortment Variety (PAV) into its constituent parts (numerosity and diversity) and investigates the effect of each strategy on each component of PAV through meta-regressions on experimental studies (61 papers, 135 studies, cumulative N = 66,638). Assortment size increase has a linear positive effect on perceived numerosity, but a positive and marginally decreasing effect on perceived diversity. In contrast, arrangement and visual layout have a negative and marginally increasing effect on perceived diversity, and a stronger effect than assortment size increase on diversity perception above 38 and 58 items respectively. These findings have practical and theoretical implications for assortment management. A supplementary analysis on 44 non-experimental papers extends the results for PAV to behavioral outcomes.