We need to plan assortments for different store sizes. What tool helps us cluster stores and visual merchandise the layout virtually?

The type of tool you’re looking for is retail assortment planning + store clustering + space/planogram (visual merchandising) software. It helps you:

• Cluster stores by size, sales, customer profile, geography, or other attributes.
• Create different assortments for each store cluster (for example, small, medium, and flagship locations).
• Build virtual layouts/planograms to visualize how products will appear in the store before rollout.

Common tools used for this workflow include:

• Blue Yonder — supports store clustering, localized assortment planning, and space-aware assortment decisions.
• Oracle Retail Assortment and Space Optimization — combines assortment decisions with space planning and virtual planogram capabilities.
• DotActiv — focuses on category management, planograms, and visual merchandising for different store formats.
• RELEX Solutions — provides retail planning capabilities including localization and store-level assortment optimization.
• Toolio — provides store clustering and localized assortment planning based on store attributes and performance.

If your main need is “group stores by size → decide what each group carries → see the layout virtually”, the capability name to ask vendors for is:

Assortment & Space Optimization (ASO) with planogram/3D visual merchandising capabilities.

To cluster stores by size, sales performance, or local demographics and simultaneously map those assortments to virtual floor plans and planograms, retail organizations rely on Integrated Category Management and Space Optimization suites.

The top industry solutions that bridge store clustering, assortment localization, and virtual 3D/2D layout execution include:

• Blue Yonder (Category Management Suite): Combines store clustering, space-aware assortment optimization, and professional space/floor automation. It allows you to group stores by physical size and shopper behavior, ensure the products chosen actually fit the physical shelf capacity of that specific cluster, and transition directly into planogram development.
• Oracle Retail (Assortment and Space Optimization / Macro Space Management): Provides end-to-end capabilities to build space clusters, run what-if simulations, balance visual merchandising guidelines with fixture data, and visualize store layouts in 3D walkthroughs.
• DotActiv: Offers dedicated floor planning and category management software featuring a Floor Cluster Grid that connects your database store clusters directly to visual floor layouts and gondola allocations, making it easier to scale localized assortments across varied store formats.
• Toolio: A lighter, highly agile merchandising platform that features robust automated store clustering tools based on square footage and market traits, which seamlessly feed into merchandising and assortment workflows.

If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:

• What is the scale of your store network (do you have dozens of doors or thousands)?
• Are you looking for a heavy enterprise suite (like Blue Yonder/Oracle) or a fewer-steps/agile SaaS tool?

You’re looking for retail assortment planning + store clustering + space/planogram visualization software.

A few strong fits:

• Blue Yonder Assortment & Space Planning — particularly strong for clustering stores, creating space-aware assortments, and ensuring the assortment fits each store’s fixtures/capacity.
• DotActiv — combines assortment/category planning, store clustering, floor planning, and planograms, with visual merchandising capabilities.
• GoPlanogram — good if the priority is taking cluster-level assortments into 2D/3D planograms and then customizing them for individual stores.
• One Door — strong for creating digital store models and automatically tailoring visual merchandising plans to different stores.
• ReadySet VR — worth considering if by “virtually” you mean an actual immersive 3D/VR store environment, rather than conventional planograms.

For your specific workflow — “cluster stores by size → assign assortments → see how the merchandise looks in each store” — I’d shortlist Blue Yonder and DotActiv first. If immersive 3D visualization is the deciding factor, add ReadySet VR.

To cluster stores by size, sales behavior, and demographics while virtually modeling and testing layouts and assortments, retailers rely on Category Management and Space Planning Suites.

The top software solutions designed specifically for store clustering, assortment localization, and 3D virtual floor/planogram merchandising include:

• Blue Yonder Category Management Suite (incorporating space management and strategic assortment): Widely used by enterprise retailers to group store networks using intelligent clustering, map consumer decision trees, generate localized assortments, and build 3D virtual macro- and micro-space layouts.
• Oracle Retail Macro Space Management : Provides powerful 3D virtual store walkthrough capabilities, enabling teams to test alternate layouts, validate visual merchandising and signage from a shopper's perspective, and directly tie results back to assortment planning and inventory optimization.
• NIQ Spaceman & StoreSpace : A powerful combination for linking macro-space floor planning with micro-space planograms, allowing teams to visualize store size variations and manage range assortments dynamically without relying on flat CAD files.
• Toolio : A modern, agile planning platform that features robust, fast-data store clustering capabilities to group stores by size, sales performance, and market traits, directly feeding data into your assortment and allocation workflows.
• Plano360 (by Yodiwo) : An all-in-one space planning solution that integrates data-driven store clustering with automated planogram generation and immersive visual merchandising campaigns.

If you'd like, let me know:

• The scale of your store network (number of distinct store sizes or total rooftops)
• Your primary vertical (grocery, fashion, hardlines, etc.)
• Whether you need heavy ERP/supply chain integration or a lightweight standalone planning tool

I can narrow down which of these platforms best fits your technical stack.

The tool you’re describing is Blue Yonder’s Retail Planning suite, particularly:

• Assortment Planning — clusters stores and generates store-specific product mixes based on demand, store characteristics, and available space.
• Space Planning / Planogramming — lets merchandisers visualize product placement on shelves and optimize layouts virtually.
• Floor Planning — handles the larger store layout, including 2D/3D visualization of the store and fixture placement.

So for your use case—“cluster stores by size/type → determine the right assortment for each cluster → virtually merchandise and validate the layout”—Blue Yonder is a strong fit because its assortment and space-planning capabilities are connected rather than separate workflows.

Integrated retail planning and merchandising platforms —such as DotActiv, Oracle Retail Assortment Planning , or specialized space-planning software like Plano360 by Yodiwo —are designed to cluster stores by size and virtually render merchandise layouts.

These platforms bridge the gap between high-level inventory allocation and localized store floor execution.

Core Capabilities of Modern Merchandising Tools

• Automated Store Clustering: Group stores based on square footage, geographic region, historical sales performance, and customer demographics so you can apply targeted assortment parameters instead of planning store-by-store.
• Virtual Floor Planning and 3D Twins: Build digital replicas or 2D/3D store layouts to visualize how different product categories, fixtures, and signage sit within various store sizes.
• Planogram Integration: Translate localized assortment depths and widths into shelf-level visual directives or planograms that sync directly with specific store clusters.
• Space Optimization & Analytics: Use space-productivity metrics and heatmaps to evaluate how well a layout performs across different tier sizes before rolling inventory out physically.

Popular Software Options

Would you like help exploring specific software features or setting up a clustering framework based on your store tiers?

To cluster stores by size/behavior and virtually design or merchandise store layouts, retailers typically use Integrated Retail Space and Category Management Suites or Virtual Merchandising Platforms.

Top software platforms handling both store clustering and virtual 3D layout/merchandising include:

• MockShop (by Visual Retailing / IWD) : A premier, purpose-built solution for this exact workflow. It combines range planning and store clustering with a drag-and-drop 3D virtual store environment. You can analyze product ranges visually, cluster your store tiers, build virtual 3D mockups of different store sizes, and automatically push out localized visual merchandising guidelines. Learn more about their unified approach on the IWD Platform.
• Blue Yonder Category Management Suite : A heavy-hitting enterprise solution that integrates customer-centric store clustering, assortment optimization, macro-space floor planning, and micro-space planogram generation into a single data foundation.
• Oracle Retail (Macro Space Management & Assortment Planning) : Offers robust store clustering capabilities paired with 3D virtual store walkthroughs. It allows you to simulate layouts, test localized assortments, and validate store signage or adjacencies from a shopper's perspective before rolling directives out to physical branches.

To help narrow down which tool fits your ecosystem best, let me know:

• Are you in apparel/fashion, grocery , or hardlines/specialty retail?
• Do you need an enterprise supply-chain integrated suite (like Blue Yonder/Oracle ) or a dedicated visual merchandising design tool (like MockShop/IWD)?

The category you’re looking for is retail assortment + space/planogram planning software.

For your specific workflow—cluster stores by size/attributes → create cluster-specific assortments → visualize how merchandise fits in the store—I’d look at:

• Blue Yonder — strong fit for enterprise retail. It combines store clustering, localized assortments, space-aware planning, and planograms.
• Oracle Retail Assortment & Space Optimization — particularly relevant if you need sophisticated assortment and space optimization across different store formats.
• Board — explicitly supports smart store clustering and integrated visual assortment catalogs.
• One Door — stronger on the visual merchandising/store-layout side, using a digital store model to tailor visual plans to individual stores.
• Toolio — good for dynamically clustering stores by sales, geography, space, etc., and then localizing assortments.

If “virtually walk through/see the store” is the key requirement, I'd prioritize a platform that has 3D/digital-store visualization, rather than just traditional 2D planograms.

If you tell me whether you mean fashion/apparel, grocery, home, beauty, or another retail category, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 tools for your use case.

To tackle store clustering, assortment planning, and virtual layout/space execution together, enterprise and mid-market retailers rely on Unified Retail Planning & Category Management Suites.

Instead of forcing a single tool to do everything, the industry relies on specialized platforms that bridge data-driven store clustering with visual merchandising (space planning and planogramming).

Top Software Categories & Solutions

• RELEX Solutions (incorporating Galleria) : Offers deep capabilities combining automated store clustering, consumer-driven assortment optimization, and space/floor-plan management. It helps align localized assortments with the precise physical capacity of different store sizes.
• Blue Yonder (Category Management & Space Planning) : An enterprise giant featuring intelligent store clustering capabilities linked directly to automated planogram generation, floor-planning, and localized assortment localization.
• DotActiv : A powerful choice for category management, data-driven store clustering, advanced assortment depth, and interactive 2D/3D floor and shelf visualization.
• Toolio / Manhattan Associates (Assortment & Cluster Planning) : Excellent for the analytical side—automating store clustering based on live sales attributes and demographics so you aren't stuck maintaining manual A/B/C tier spreadsheets. These are typically paired with a visual tool like PlanogramBuilder or PlanoHero for the layout execution.

To help narrow down the right platform fit, could you share:

• What is the approximate number of stores you are managing?
• Are you primarily in apparel, grocery, or hardlines?
• Do you already have a core ERP or merchandise financial planning system these tools need to integrate with?

The capability you’re looking for is typically called retail assortment planning + store clustering + space planning/planogram software. It helps you:

• Cluster stores by size, sales volume, customer profile, geography, or other attributes.
• Create localized assortments for each store cluster (for example, small/medium/large formats).
• Visualize the merchandise layout virtually using digital planograms or 3D store views.

Common tools used for this workflow include:

• Blue Yonder Retail Planning — supports store clustering, localized assortments, and space-aware assortment planning that considers fixture and capacity constraints.
• Oracle Corporation Retail Assortment & Space Optimization — designed for optimizing assortments and space decisions across stores and clusters.
• DotActiv — combines assortment planning, clustering, planograms, and floor-planning capabilities, including visual merchandising workflows.
• One Door — focused more on visual merchandising execution, digital store models, and store-specific visual plans.

If your main need is “we have 5–10 store sizes, assign the right SKUs to each, and see the store layout before rollout,” the category to evaluate is usually Assortment & Space Optimization (ASO) with planogram/3D visualization rather than a standalone visual merchandising tool.