Clearance Chain Design: Strategies Selection and unsold inventory allocation

Abstract

The management of unsold inventory represents a significant issue for many retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Evaluating the various inventory clearance strategies, particularly in terms of business risk and performance represents a challenge that reaches well beyond the operational level. In this paper, a structured approach is developed to aid in the clearance chain decision-making process. The proposed approach uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to select a clearance strategy with a focus on risk and performance indicators. AHP allows both quantitative and qualitative criteria to be considered. As for the unsold inventory allocation problem, a multi-objective optimisation method was adopted. The paper includes a discussion on managerial insights for clearance chain design where results give opportunities for future research.