Experimental Designs for Multi-Item Multi-Period Inventory Control (opens in new tab)

arXiv:2501.11996v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Randomized experiments, or A/B testing, are the gold standard for evaluating interventions, yet they remain underutilized in inventory management. This study addresses this gap by analyzing A/B testing strategies in multi-item, multi-period inventory systems with lost sales and capacity constraints. We examine two canonical experimental designs--switchback experiments and item-level randomization--and show that both suffer from systema...