Creating dynamic product groups

Use this procedure to create dynamic product groups. Dynamic product groups are supported in Promotion Planning & Execution, Price Management and Price Optimization.

About this task

The products in the dynamic product group that match your specified product criteria are considered "driver" products. You can also include products that are related to the driver products by line, brand, size, other 1, or other 2. For example, in Price Optimization, you may want to optimize a subset of products in a category that includes the top 30% revenue-generating items, as well as all other products related by the same brand. You can then use this product group in a scenario optimization and get recommended price changes for only those products. The members of the dynamic product groups will be updated based on the specified criteria.

For more flexibility in defining the driver products, you can specify multiple criteria and arrange them into groups. You can then control if all or at least one of the sets of criteria in each group must be met for the products to be included in the product group. At a higher level, you can also control whether all of the criteria groups must be matched or if only one of the groups must be matched.

You can view the latest product group members and their recommended price changes in the Product Group Results report in the Scenario Results page after a pricing action.

Procedure

  1. Choose Data > Product Groups.
    For the specified category, the Product Groups page shows all product groups and details for each.
  2. Click New Product Group.
    The New Product Group page opens.
  3. Enter a unique Description that is easily identifiable and does not exceed 50 characters for the group.
  4. Select a product Category from the list.
    You can also select All Categories to define a dynamic product group for all categories at one time. The same product group definition will be used for creating a product group across all categories.
  5. Select Automatically update product group to create a dynamic product group.
  6. Choose an attribute, operator, and value that DemandTec by Acoustic will use to select the "driver" products for the product group in the Product Criteria drop-down menus.

    Attributes that you can choose to search for include:

    • Manufacturer - All products with the specified manufacturer.
    • UPC - All products with the specified UPC.
    • Line - All products in the specified line group.
    • Brand - All products with the specified brand name.
    • Brand Family - All products with the specified brand family.
    • Other Family - All products with the specified other type of family.
    • Demand Group- All products in the specified Demand Group.
    • Size - All products with the specified size.
    • UOM - All products with the specified unit of measure (UOM).
    • Size Family - All products with the specified size family.
    • Individual Revenue Percentage - All products with revenue that equals, exceeds, or is between the specified percentage(s).
    • Individual Volume Percentage - All products with volume that equals, exceeds, or is between the specified percentage(s).
    • Price - All products with the specified average price.
    • Current Price - All products with the specified current price.
    • SKU Attribute - All products with the specified SKU attribute.
    • P1-P12 - All products with the specified P1-P12 attributes.
    • Cumulative Revenue Percentage - All products that comprise the specified revenue percentage, for example, the "top 30% revenue".
    • Current Price - All products with the specified current price.
    • CPI Attribute - All products with the specified CPI attribute.
    • SKU/Zone Attribute - All products with the specified SKU/Zone attribute.
    • Cumulative Volume %
    • Cumulative Volume % for Line Group
  7. Click Advanced Criteria to define multiple criteria and save them in groups.
  8. Choose an attribute, operator, and value, and then click Add to save the criteria in an existing group, or in the next new group in sequence. Note that values are case-sensitive.

    For numeric or text fields, you can also enter multiple comma-separated values and click Add Multiple Criteria. (In locales which use commas as a decimal delimiter, DemandTec by Acoustic uses semi-colons to separate multiple criteria.) This action adds each value as a separate criterion.

    Repeat this process to add additional criteria in the groups. Note that the value is case-sensitive.

    • Choose the operator is like or is not like to search products using the wildcard character *; for example, all brands that start with the letter 'P' would be entered as 'P*'. With the operators, begins with, ends with, or contains, the wildcard character does not need to be entered for searching products that start with, ends with, or contains a specified letter (only available for text-based attributes and not for numerical attributes such as 'size').
    • Choose the operator in list to search products that match any of the values that you enter. For example, if you choose the Manufacturer attribute, the in list operator, and then enter a list of manufacturers, products from any one of the manufacturers will be added to the group. Similarly, if you choose the Size attribute, and enter a list of values (1.2, 2.3, 4.5), products of any one of those sizes will be added to the group.
    Note: You can also add Business Metrics to apply Cumulative Revenue %, Cumulative Volume %, or Cumulative Volume % for Line Group attributes together with the product criteria groups, for example, the "Top 30 revenue products of the private label items".

    Under each group description, you can select whether all of the criteria must be met, or at least one of the sets of criteria must be met for products to be included in the product group. For example, since the value is case-sensitive, you could include several possible variations of a brand name in a criteria group, such as star*, Star*, and STAR*, and specify that one or more of the variations must be matched, as shown below.

    Similarly, you can select whether all of the criteria groups must be matched, or if only one of the groups must be matched at the top of the group list.

  9. Click OK when you are done.
    You will return to the New Product Group page where all of the criteria groups will be listed. Click Edit Criteria if you want to edit the criteria in the Product Group - Advanced Criteria dialog box.Groups with only one set of criteria will be combined into one group after clicking Done or View Product Group Detail in the New Product Group page. You will see the updated criteria group if you edit the product group. You can specify if you want to also include products with the same line, brand, size, other1 family, other2 family, or any combination.
  10. Click View Product Group Detail to preview the selected products.
    The View Product Group Detail page is read-only, and for viewing purposes only. A summary of the product group attributes and selection criteria display at the top of the page.
  11. Click Done to return to the Product Groups page, or Add Next Product Group to continue adding product groups.
    Your new product groups will appear in the Product Groups page. The Dynamic checkbox is set for each dynamic product group, and the All Categories checkbox is set for dynamic product groups created for all categories.