  In the rapidly evolving landscape of retail, assortment planning plays a
crucial role in determining the success of a business. With the rise of
sponsored products and their increasing prominence in online marketplaces,
retailers face new challenges in effectively managing their product assortment
in the presence of sponsored products. Remarkably, previous research in
assortment planning largely overlooks the existence of sponsored products and
their potential impact on overall recommendation effectiveness. Instead, they
commonly make the simplifying assumption that all products are either organic
or non-sponsored. This research gap underscores the necessity for a more
thorough investigation of the assortment planning challenge when sponsored
products are in play. We formulate the assortment planning problem in the
presence of sponsored products as a combinatorial optimization task. The
ultimate objective is to compute an assortment plan that optimizes expected
revenue while considering the specific requirements of placing sponsored
products strategically.
