arXiv:2511.11646cs.LGcs.AI2025-11

用生成模型模拟新产品上市后的消费者反应,帮企业提前试错。

What-If Decision Support for Product Line Extension Using Conditional Deep Generative Models

  • 用条件变分自编码器生成虚拟消费者数据,预测新设计影响。
  • 在700款饮料、2万+消费者的面板数据上验证效果更优。
  • 适合产品决策者做市场预判,避免盲目扩展导致销量下滑。

产品线扩展是重要的战略决策,需预判不同消费者群体在特定购买情境下对尚未上市的新产品设计的反应。由于缺乏直接市场观测,此类决策充满不确定性。本文提出一种基于历史交易数据的数据驱动决策支持框架,引入条件表格变分自编码器(CTVAE),从大规模表格数据中学习产品属性与消费者特征的联合分布。通过控制容器类型、容量、口味和热量等设计变量,模型可生成假设产品对应的合成消费者属性分布,实现无需昂贵市场预测试验的方案探索。框架在涵盖20,000多名消费者和700种软饮料的家用扫描面板数据上进行评估。实证结果表明,CTVAE在捕捉条件消费者属性分布方面优于现有表格生成模型。基于仿真的分析进一步证明,合成数据能支持知识驱动的推理,用于评估产品间竞争风险并识别潜在目标人群。研究凸显了条件深度生成模型在产品线扩展规划决策系统中的核心价值。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Product line extension is a strategically important managerial decision that requires anticipating how consumer segments and purchasing contexts may respond to hypothetical product designs that do not yet exist in the market. Such decisions are inherently uncertain because managers must infer future outcomes from historical purchase data without direct market observations. This study addresses this challenge by proposing a data-driven decision support framework that enables forward-looking what-if analysis based on historical transaction data. We introduce a Conditional Tabular Variational Autoencoder (CTVAE) that learns the conditional joint distribution of product attributes and consumer characteristics from large-scale tabular data. By conditioning the generative process on controllable design variables such as container type, volume, flavor, and calorie content, the proposed model generates synthetic consumer attribute distributions for hypothetical line-extended products. This enables systematic exploration of alternative design scenarios without costly market pretests. The framework is evaluated using home-scan panel data covering more than 20,000 consumers and 700 soft drink products. Empirical results show that the CTVAE outperforms existing tabular generative models in capturing conditional consumer attribute distributions. Simulation-based analyses further demonstrate that the generated synthetic data support knowledge-driven reasoning for assessing cannibalization risks and identifying potential target segments. These findings highlight the value of conditional deep generative models as core components of decision support systems for product line extension planning.

产品扩展生成模型消费者预测

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