品類是指消費者認為相關或可互相替代的一群商品或服務。從前零售商的注意力都是集中在品牌的管理上，他們認為吸引消費者的會是品牌的包裝和銷售手法，現在零售商優化的則是品類的管理，因為妥善的安排品類的貨架空間往往會比注意力專注在品牌管理上來得容易貼近消費者的需求。而品類管理指的是將產品的品類視為策略性事業單位來經營的過程，制定零售價及貨架空間分配是零售業中常見且重要的問題，過去亦有許多學術研究探討其相關議題。我們的研究主要在探討有限的貨架空間下傳統零售品類管理(retail category management, RCM)及品類領導(category captainship, CC) 此兩種常見的品類管理機制時決策的影響，條件是在產品需求不對稱情況下的分析及比較。 本研究使用品類管理的模型將延用 Kurtulus and Toktay (2011)的作法，需求函數則由Singh and Vives (1984)的Utility推導而來。另外，此Utility函數可以透過γ係數來呈現兩產品的不同程度之替代性與互補性。故我們的研究還包括研究不同品類間，呈現互補關係之產品利用無差異曲線來評估和比較RCM和CC的差別，進一步探討在哪種品類管理下，對Category Captain、Non-captain、零售商利益的影響並給予建議。未來，我們的研究也有計畫探討兩個互補品類，多產品的問題。 ;The category of product is defined as a group of products that consumers perceive to be interrelated or substitutable or complementary. The attention of former retailers is focused on brand management, they think that attracting consumers will be the brand of packaging and sales practices. Now the retailer is optimized for the management of the category because the proper arrangement of the shelf space of the category is often more focused than the focus on the brand management is easy to close to the needs of consumers. Category management is a process for managing entire product categories as business units. Pricing and the shelf space allocation decision is an important problem for the retailer and has been studied for years. In our research, we focus on the restricted shelf space to study two common category management mechanisms: retailer category management (RCM) and category captainship (CC) in the non-symmetric market potential. We modify the demand function from the utility function in Singh and Vives (1984). This utility also provides the parameter γ to present complementarity of products. So our research including the complementary products, we compare the difference when switching RCM to CC. Maybe we can model multiple products in one or several categories.
