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The Merchandising Simulator answers the question every seller asks before a real brief is on the line: “what changes if we hold price versus close quickly?” It runs your baseline configuration and up to three declared changes against the same frozen brief, through the same merchandising engine that answers live buyers, and shows you the decisions side by side.

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What a simulation is

A simulation starts from a scenario: a pinned brief plus a frozen snapshot of your configuration, captured by the platform at that moment. The brief can come from three places:
  • a sample Display brief the platform provides, so you can test whether your current inventory fits that brief before anything real is at stake;
  • one of your own — paste or describe a brief to your assistant;
  • a brief you actually received, cloned from your demand history.
Each scenario holds a baseline — your configuration exactly as captured, with no changes — and up to three variants, each declaring what it changes: a negotiation posture, a price adjustment, a different rate card, bundle inclusion/exclusion rules, or a product cap.

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What a run shows

Running a variant executes it through the real merchandising engine and records a canonical decision record — the same record shape your live demand produces. Each card shows:
  • the products the engine offered, with their CPMs;
  • a delta against the baseline run: how many products moved, exactly which products dropped or joined the plan, and the declared price change;
  • the engine’s posture (distinct from anything you declared) and its reasoning;
  • for a withheld run, why no offer was produced — for example, an acceptance-policy decline — alongside what the baseline offered.
Run variants one at a time, or run every remaining variant with one action. Reruns append to the evidence; earlier runs are never rewritten.

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What a simulation is not

  • It never predicts a buyer. A run shows what your agent would offer — it cannot claim what a buyer would accept, negotiate, or book.
  • It never touches your live setup. Rate cards, rules, policies, products, proposals, and media buys are untouched by any run. Overrides live and die inside the simulation.
  • It never leaks into your analytics. Simulation runs are excluded from Brief History, seller analytics, learning, and attribution.

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Replay windows

The frozen inputs behind a scenario are kept for 30 days. After that, the scenario’s evidence remains readable — every run and decision record stays — but new runs need a fresh revision captured from your current configuration. Ask your assistant to capture one; the earlier revision’s evidence is kept alongside it.

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Getting started

The current sample asks for premium US Display inventory. It always uses your Storefront’s current inventory and configuration; it does not add synthetic Display inventory. If your Storefront does not sell Display, an all-decline comparison is the expected, honest result—not evidence that the Simulator is broken. Start from one of your own briefs or an observed brief for a useful channel match. For a Storefront with Display inventory, ask your assistant:
Create a simulation from the sample publisher brief
Then open the Merchandising Simulator, run the baseline and variants, and compare. For any other channel, use your own brief or clone one from demand history and try the change you’ve been debating.