Benefits And Drawbacks Of Shopping At Supermarkets And Solutions To Reduce Queues

Benefits of Shopping at Supermarkets

Question:

Discuss About The Several Benefits Of Shopping Supermarkets?

The concept of supermarkets as well as multipurpose stores has been in history since long. There are several benefits of shopping at the supermarkets as they give easy benefits for the customers. The one-stop centres for all sorts of items are extremely beneficial as they reduce the time of moving from one shop to another in search of items of requirement. However, the advent of such concepts has drawbacks as well apart from having many positive sides as well. The drawbacks need to be overcome as fast as possible because, the negatives should not deter the customers from shopping at these retail chains. In case the customers find fault with the systems and stop coming to the supermarkets, the total customer count will fall and the sales of the retail chains will suffer. In order to ensure that this does not occur, the problems arising in the supermarkets should be solved with immediate effect.

Among the problems faced by customers at supermarkets, the most important and significant issue is that of the long queues and the huge amount of waiting time that the customers have to bear with. The issue regarding the long queues is problematic because, huge amount of time is consumed at the cash counters, the problems faced by the customers in a rush or a hurry or on their way to work is huge. This poses a serious problem to the entire situation of the queuing up at the counters and waiting for their respective turns.

In order to solve this issue, the Oz Supermarket has been employed. It is basically a retail chain that has been employed to help in the reduction of queues at the supermarket chains. In order to achieve the said goal, the chain has developed certain policies which can assist in the process of the queue reduction. Only household goods, stationary and non-perishable nature of goods are stocked by the retail chain. The concept of PayWare Technology has been adopted which does not accept cash payments of any form. The trolleys have special readers installed in them which assists in the automatic queuing of a selected item for the purpose of payment. In case a customer changes his or her mind, and keeps back any item it is also adjusted and the amount deducted from the total payment amount. After completion of the shopping procedure, the shopper is free to leave the store without going through the tedious process of waiting at the cash counters in the form of a long queue (Leong et al., 2013).

Drawbacks of Shopping at Supermarkets

In cases where the customers do not have a PayWare card, they can easily deposit a certain amount temporarily in the form of cash and in exchange for that they would be provided with the store-issued temporary PayWare card thereby allowing them to shop, and can also exit the store just like the other card owners (Teo et al., 2015). The balance is either returned in cash or adjusted for future purchases. In cases where the amount deposited is insufficient, an alarm will ring, informing the customers about the problem encountered. The extra amounts incurred in tagging every item possessing an RFID chip are adjusted in the interests of the customers in major rush (Liu, Kauffman & Ma, 2015).

Adjustments for parking are also done, with increased prices during the peak shopping hours and reduced costs when the rush is relatively less. This is basically the business operation which is adopted by the retail chain in order to tackle the queuing problem (Chothia et al., 2015).

The concept of Paywave technology has several benefits including the ease of using the credit card to purchase products without even keying in a pin or without involvement of signing of receipt. There is also protection against the fraudulent activities, very low chance of being hacked. It is also cost as well as time efficient. The concept of typing errors is not there and no access to information is given to the retailers as well. Most importantly it does not lead to any sort of queuing up or long lines in front of the payment counters.

Certain drawbacks also exist as very few number of people have adapted to this particular technology, there might be possibilities of confusion or frustration among them. There are many customers who are not educated regarding the use of this technology. Only customers possessing certain features can avail these technologies, everyone cannot. The risks of online and viruses are always there. The limit of the transaction or the limit per transaction cannot be determined (Leavitt, 2012).

In the places where the PayWave has not been adopted or in cases where the people still need time to adopt to this technology, the customers should not be left to just wait and it is desirable for the staff members to interact with them. In cases there are specific reasons for delay, the reasons can be properly explained to the customers. In such cases the customers are less likely to feel offended (Bodhani, 2013).

Solutions to Reduce Queues at Supermarkets

The concept of the security tagging needs to be avoided in certain supermarkets to avoid the queues, the removal of the security tags needs a lot of time and due to this there is a possibility of the waiting time to increase.

The customers can be entertained during their time of wait at the particular counters of exit. The televisions installed can play videos or films that might appeal to the customers and make them feel less frustrated or stressed out (Lerner, 2013).

In connection to the technology adopted, the Smartphone can be linked to the purchases of the company or each of the retail chains can use their own apps to facilitate the purchases. The apps can be designed to contain all the particulars of the purchases and every customer can create a personal account which will contain all the details of the purchases and the services. This might be beneficial as any sort of doubts or confusions are absent in the mobile purchases.

Undoubtedly long queues at different check out points of the supermarket outlets can spoil the entire shopping experience of the customers of the firm Oz Supermarket. There is already certain advanced technology that retailers are using in their attempt to reduce the waiting time of customers (Fernie & Sparks, 2014). The supermarket operation can particularly overcome the issue of lengthy queue in the checkout lines with an immensely powerful tool that is the infrared camera that is long utilized by military as well as law enforcement to monitor people. In essence, these infrared cameras that can detect the heat of the body mainly might be placed at the entrances or else above the cash registers of the supermarket. In addition to this, the infrared cameras also need to be paired with specific in-house application software that can help in determining the total number of lanes that has the need to be kept open (Varley, 2014). Based on results of prior studies and experiments it can be hereby mentioned that that the implementation of this infrared camera can help in reduction of the wait time to around 26 seconds.

Additionally, it can be said that the implementation of this advanced technology can help in executing at the front of the outlets without the supplementary labour expends. However, it is remarkable that implementation of this technology can help in execution of the system at the front of the store without the supplementary labour expends (Yu et al., 2014). Therefore, the management of the firm can improve the entire system that can contain improved software designed by the IT division of the corporation. This in turn can assist in predicting for each outlet the time required for the customers spend on marketing founded on day as well as time.  Again, this system can help in determining the total number of lanes that have the need to be remained open in 30 minute increases (Magrath & McCormick, 2013). In addition to this, this current system can also help in presenting properly and displaying specific information on different monitors above the particular lanes in order to ensure that the supervisors can employ cashiers at that place accordingly (Baker, 2014).

Advantages of PayWave Technology for Shopping

Implementation of this new and improved technology at the Oz Supermarket can help in the process of the handling the traffic of the customers. Traffic counters can be used for developing a forecasting model of customer arrivals, exit and waiting time. The camera can hereby help in estimating the time of arrival from the register; build a decent model that can help in gauging the time period of the shopping trips. In addition to this, this might also help the management in decide the requirement of the staff based on the information provided by this technology (Pantano, 2014).

As rightly mentioned by Petkovi? & Bogeti? (2014), critical business data provides retailers different possibilities for reading, testing and enhancing retail operations that can be obtained from  the feedback of the customers. This in turn can drive the top line growth in revenue of the firm. The feedback from the customers can help the management of the retailer to enhance the selling exercises, adjust different promotional techniques of marketing as well as refine the entire merchandising plans of the company. In addition to this, the feedback from the customers can also help in understanding the effect of the system that is already in place on the shopping experience such as the PayWave Technology, RFID chip, shopping summary stations and store car parks. Essentially, customer data delivers an additional level of insight required for the store managers of Oz Supermarket to arrive at more informed decisions regarding business. This in turn can help in the process of the delivering  a more personalized service.  Thus, it can be hereby mentioned that the acquirement of feedback from customers can assist in augmentation of operational efficiency by proper tracking of specific trends at diverse departmental as well as regional stage (Sahney, 2015). Furthermore, the feedback from customer that deliver customer data can help in marketing as well as brand resonance by developing insight regarding values of community, delivering as per customer preference, enhancing sales and gaining loyalty. Again, enhanced employee engagements are also fallout of the effective use of customer data as management can understand the requirement of training for diverse associates of the store.

In addition to this, assessment of the quality of the product at regular intervals can help in understanding the gaps in the expectations of the customers and the actual offerings of the company. The management of the firm can implement quality as well as safety management techniques, identify product risks and acquire requisite knowledge regarding the products offered by the company. This can help in enhancing the overall quality of the products and consequently satisfy the customers and acquire commercial success (Baker, 2014).

Importance of Customer Feedback in Retail Operations

In addition to this, the management of the firm can virtually audit different aspects of the customer experience inside the outlet of the Oz supermarket. This involves examining whether the employees at the store are friendly and helpful at specifically the customer service desk. In addition to this, it is also important to check whether the shelves of the retail store are adequately stocked and whether the members of the staff are in uniform. A video driven system of business intelligence can be used for reviewing the all the aspects of customer experience as mentioned above (Sahney, 2015). Again, one of the most significant factors of today’s complicated video-driven business intelligence system is that it permits the management to access the recorded video from essentially anywhere through the internet using computers or else mobile devices. This video based business intelligence system to enhance the business operations can help in assimilating the video with specific POS data that can help in inderstanding the promotions that are most effectual at driving traffic of the store and augmenting the entire purchase amount. Furthermore, the video based business intelligence system can also assist in comprehending diverse store factors that in turn can contribute towards the loyalty of the customers (Pantano, 2014).

References

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Bodhani, A. (2013). New ways to pay. Engineering & Technology, 8(7), 32-35.

 Chothia, T., Garcia, F. D., De Ruiter, J., Van Den Breekel, J., & Thompson, M. (2015, January). Relay cost bounding for contactless EMV payments. In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (pp. 189-206). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Fernie, J., & Sparks, L. (2014). Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.

Leavitt, N. (2012). Are mobile payments ready to cash in yet?. Computer, 45(9), 15-18.

Leong, L. Y., Hew, T. S., Tan, G. W. H., & Ooi, K. B. (2013). Predicting the determinants of the NFC-enabled mobile credit card acceptance: A neural networks approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 40(14), 5604-5620.

Lerner, T. (2013). International comparisons. In Mobile Payment (pp. 137-142). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Liu, J., Kauffman, R. J., & Ma, D. (2015). Competition, cooperation, and regulation: Understanding the evolution of the mobile payments technology ecosystem. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 14(5), 372-391.

Magrath, V., & McCormick, H. (2013). Marketing design elements of mobile fashion retail apps. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 17(1), 115-134.

Pantano, E. (2014). Innovation drivers in retail industry. International Journal of Information Management, 34(3), 344-350.

Petkovi?, G., & Bogeti?, Z. (2014). Different perspectives of the retail marketing development. Contemporary Management and Marketing Methods in Improving Competitiveness of Companies in Serbia in the Process of its Integration in European Union, 105-118.

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Teo, A. C., Tan, G. W. H., Ooi, K. B., & Lin, B. (2015). Why consumers adopt mobile payment? A partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 13(5), 478-497.

Varley, R. (2014). Retail product management: buying and merchandising. Routledge.

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