Product group
In retail, a product group is understood to be the combination of individual articles based on a common characteristic into a group. Possible connecting characteristics are:
- Origin (e.g. wines from Spain)
- Purpose (e.g. drinks)
- Properties of the manufacturing material (e.g. wood)
- complementary properties with regard to a purpose (e.g. all products for breakfast)
- Subject areas (e.g. in the case of books, a product group system in the intermediate book trade)
The product groups can also be further differentiated into sub-product groups or article groups (e.g. alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages) or they can also be grouped into higher-level goods types (e.g. food and non-food). A merging assignment of individual product groups to also superordinate main product groups is common: The content-related product groups glass , porcelain , ceramics are often combined into the main product group GPK (or comparable: paper , office and stationery to PBS). In contrast, the entirety of all items carried in a retail store is called an assortment .