Disentangling the respective impacts of assortment size and alignability on perceived assortment variety

Abstract

Assortment size is considered to influence strongly perceived assortment variety, but this influence depends on assortment organization. We consider assortment alignability (i.e. the degree of comparability between products) and show how it interacts with size to influence perceived variety. When assortment is structured along a unique important attribute (e.g. flavor or format), alignability influences perceived variety but size does not (Study 1). When this attribute is not important, only size influences perceived variety (Study 2). When assortment is structured along several attributes (e.g. flavor and format), alignability positively influences perceived variety, and assortment size reinforces this effect (Study 3).