Assortment Optimization and Pricing Under the Multinomial Logit Model with Impatient Customers: Sequential Recommendation and Selection

Abstract

Sequential Recommendation Under the Multinomial Logit Model with Impatient Customers In many applications, customers incrementally view a subset of offered products and make purchasing decisions before observing all the offered products. In this case, the decision faced by a firm is not only what assortment of products to offer, but also in what sequence to offer the products. In “Assortment Optimization and Pricing Under the Multinomial Logit Model with Impatient Customers: Sequential Recommendation and Selection”, Gao, Ma, Chen, Gallego, Li, Rusmevichientong, and Topaloglu propose a choice model where each customer incrementally view the assortment of products in multiple stages, and their patience level determines the maximum number of stages. Under this choice model, the authors develop a polynomial-time algorithm that finds a revenue-maximizing sequence of assortments. If the sequence of assortments is fixed, the problem of finding revenue-maximizing prices can be transformed to a convex program. They combine these results to develop an effective approximation algorithm when both the sequence of assortments and prices are decision variables.