Grocery Store: Adoption of Technological Systems
Analysis of the Industry
The Supermarket and Grocery Stores Industry commonly referred to as the Grocery Store Industry remains one of the fast developing industries in the United States. The exponential growth of the industry is largely due to the improved economy of the country. Currently, the industry is valued at $612 Billion and is an employer of nearly 2 million citizens (IBIS World, 2017). However, the success of the industry is being faced with a number of issues. Technology is among the main issues that are affecting operations and growth of the industry.
Problems in the Industry
On a busy day, offering all the customers the best of service is a hard task especially if there are many customers. Long queues easily cause dissatisfaction among customers considering that they might be served slowly. On average, a customer might take five to seven minutes in the queue, which for a customer who is in hurry; this might not be the ideal time to meet their time limits for other jobs.
Major Issue
Technology offers many benefits including reducing the wait time in the queues that is solved with the introduction of the self-checking systems (Orel & Kara, 2014; Kokkinou & Cranage, 2015). The self-checkout systems are some of the modern technology being adopted by the industry and businesses in various regions. It offers the benefit of keeping track of purchases, collecting information related to the number of customers, and providing records related to the purchases made by the customers. The adoption of the self-checkout system will help eliminate the long wait time in the queues during shopping.
References
IBIS World. (2017). Supermarkets & Grocery Stores – US Market Research Report. Retrieved from IBIS World: https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-reports/retail-trade/food-beverage-stores/supermarkets-grocery-stores.html
Kokkinou, A., & Cranage, D. A. (2015). Why wait? Impact of waiting lines on self-service technology use. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(6), 1181-1197. Retrieved from https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2013-0578
Orel, F. D., & Kara, A. (2014). Supermarket self-checkout service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty: Empirical evidence from an emerging market. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(2), 118-129. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698913000829