ALLOCATING COMMODITY SHELVES IN A SUPERMARKET

A method of and a system for allocating commodity shelves including obtaining shopping paths of customers, classifying the customers according to a predetermined standard, determining one or more shopping paths adopted by more customers in each kind of customers as frequent shopping path(s) of this kind of customers, calculating a see-buy rate of a commodity for each class of customers. The see-buy rate of a commodity for a class of customers refers to a probability to purchase the commodity for the class of customers. Calculating a shelf where each commodity in a set of commodities is located when the total expected benefits for set of commodities are maximized during a certain period of time. The total expected benefits include a sum of an expected benefit for the each commodity based on the see-buy rate and the frequency shopping path when each commodity is located in its own shelf.