I. Introduction Morrisons has one of the largest chains of supermarkets in the UK. It is the fourth largest retail chain in the country with headquarters in Bradford-England. William Morrison founded the company in 1899, thus giving it the abbreviation Wm. The company had a dominant presence in northern England before 2004. However, the Safeway takeover increased the company’s presence in parts of South East England, Scotland as well as Wales. The company has grown the number of its superstores to over 530, with a further 120 M local stores in Wales, Scotland and England. Morrisons runs an online retail store for its customers and offers home delivery services for groceries around the UK. This report offers an analysis of Morisons’ online …show more content…
In many megastores and supermarkets around the UK, it is common for customers to circle around in search of parking spots before going for shopping. Home delivery services save customers discouraging inconveniences. In fact, before getting to the supermarkets, customers usually have fought their way through the busy traffic, just to come and miss parking space. Home delivery services offered by Morrisons eliminate the need for customers to make long ques at the billing counter during the rush hours of the day. Additionally, shoppers do not have to struggle loading their weekly grocery supplies into their car, especially for customers with limited physical ability such as the elderly, expectant women and the physically challenged. By letting shoppers avoid the heavy traffic to and from the grocery stores, Morrison customers are able to save a lot of time through the home delivery services that the company offers. For many shoppers, time and convenience is just as important as being able to save money when purchasing groceries. People have various tasks that they perform during the day, for example housework, picking up children from school and attending meetings. Therefore, offering a service that saves them from going physically to supermarkets is a big plus for Morrisons customers. Online grocery services provide a rescue for busy parents and couples. Another advantage of online
Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements. Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round. With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want.
It’s so convenient! You’ve just finished your weekly grocery shopping at your local big box store and you’re on your way out the door with a cart full of all the bargains you found and
The internet helps Tesco to be efficient as they can collect orders in advance and prepare for them. They are able to continue business in-store and serve others at home. With a couple of extra staff (to be the ‘pickers’ and drivers to deliver) Tesco are able to maximise efficiency by adding extra orders from customers that aren’t in-store and this reduces the amount of people in the store which may block shelves if it gets too crowded. Time and money is
It is also a market that is relatively untapped (e-commerce groceries) while at the same time servicing a market that is always needed (people always need to eat). However, in unstable economic times, people will unlikely pay for a luxury service such as this. People with low discretionary income will go to a local grocery store and buy food on sale, instead of paying for extra delivery fees. Another cost saving benefit of ordering online is saving on ever increasing gas prices.
1. As a customer, what do you want from an online grocery store? How does consumers’ behaviour differ when shopping for groceries on-line vs. off-line? What are the implications of these differences on the operations of an on-line vs. off-line store?
We know food delivery is not a new and improved idea. Many businesses already deliver food and we are not trying to compete with them. We are just giving customers another option where you can track your delivery service at the comfort of your own home. In today’s society, people are constantly on the go. This service will allow you to even order multiple days in advance and have a preset time your order will arrive. People
Advancments in technology have allowed major changes in service delivery.t echnology driven self services have been targeted around areas such as supermarkets e.g tesco,ATMs etc.this type of technology gives the consumer a sense of independence on top of emotional benefit and have major money saving for businesses who decide to use this type of technology (Zainuddin, Tam, & McCosker, 2016) , however this is not the case with mcodnalds graton street.
By analyzing Amazon’s market situation, there are several strengths that encourage the opening of a drive-thru grocery store in Toronto. The built in feature of a drive-thru will offer a less time-consuming way for customers to shop for groceries, providing more convenience. In a contemporary society, especially in Toronto, people have a very busy lifestyle due to today’s stressful work lifestyle. From research completed in 1999, more than 25 million Americans, almost 20.5 percent of the total workforce, reported that they worked at least 49 hours a week, and 11 million of those said they worked more than 59 hours a week (Schabner, 2015). Today, this condition is not improved. Therefore, Amazon’s drive-thru grocery store is providing a high-efficiency alternative, where customers can order groceries online and select a time to pick them up that fits within their schedule. Also, customers do not need cars necessarily, they could arrive by bicycle or by foot, which means the service meets customers’ needs better, since almost everyone could access this service. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional grocery shopping, building the drive-thru station is an important step of automation progress (Heath, 2015). It is a way to improve the efficiency. Furthermore, Amazon is an electronic commerce and cloud computing company, and it is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States (Monument Policy Group, 2015). Before going into the
Morrisons is UK’s fourth largest retailing service provider. Morrisons has expanded from a one-man business to hundreds of stores spread across UK with thousands of employees. Morrisons focuses on its Market-Street and is differentiated from other retailers because of its approach to fresh food. The increase in number of stores and employees has increased the needs of organizational management and created new challenges for the HR management.
Tesco follows a multi-channel approach. It was the first retailer to create grocery home shopping in 1997. Its in-store picking model is accompany by a small number of specialized dotcom-only stores that allow Tesco to respond to high customer demand. Click & Collect service of Tesco is a key part of its multi-channel offering and enables customers to pick up their shopping according to their suitability. The company has over 1,750 Click & Collect collection points for general merchandise and over 260 grocery drive-thrus in the UK(marketline,2016).
As well as major effects of financial struggle and unemployment on the retail sector, there are many other factors that have impacted the industry. As well as being cost conscious, huge advances in technology have made a permanent impact on the grocery shopping for the consumer and the retailer. We are living in one of the most exciting times in retailing history, thanks to continuous technology innovation, supported by the World Wide Web and open-source networks. Those retailers who embrace this breakthrough technology gain market acceptance and potentially leapfrog incumbent competition. The transition from locked rooms and long term plans t an open, transparent, fast-paced and more creative world also is being embraced by leading businesses. Recognizing how critical these new technology-based channels are to their success, leading-edge retailers have adopted a proactive culture, unleashing the untapped talent within their organizations and focusing on engaging with customers by using social media and mobility (Brennan 2010). Before retailers used the internet for online shopping or advertising, customers had a lot less knowledge on their products unless they went into a store and asked a sale assistant, now they are able to research products and know just as much as the shop workers themselves. Shoppers used to rely on familiarity or word of mouth to contact or find a store, due to the Internet, we are now able to mobile devices to see offers, locate and call a store
For online grocery stores initial investments are high as it requires newly developed infrastructure or upgraded operations, software’s, tools to support online market, Mobile/Tablet based applications which provide modern standard of implemented technology for buying items online, an option of real-time tracking feature and most important security features as customer can have option either to pay by card or directly cash on collection, if its card whether customer willing to pay by PayPal service or by manually entering all the details, Marketing also plays an important role in any kind of business, among other things higher operating costs matters for these kind of businesses. The investments also involves higher risks because of market uncertainties, logistics requirements, costs differ significantly across different product categories for example canned food versus fresh food. Pure online grocers find it difficult to enter in an online market on a broad scale because of high investment and start-up costs, they are most likely to operate as niche players in large metropolitan areas working with logistics and shopping partners such as Amazon to provide home delivery service in Europe, Traditional stores such as Asda in U.K take advantage of their retail outlets and pick consumer items for delivery from their existing stores.
In this modern era, the use of the online grocery shopping has increased significantly. There are numerous online grocers in the United Kingdom including the big chain supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose. According to IGD (2013), one out of five households in United Kingdom are buying their groceries online every month. IGD (2013) stated that families, especially those with pre=school children tend to shop online for groceries. On another note, many people tend to do their grocery shopping online because of the convenience. For example, there are some people who prefer online grocery shopping because it saves them precious time. IGD.com (2013) quoted a shopper saying that the individual finalised his/her idea on the train and arrange for it to be delivered when the shopper reaches home.
Taking into consideration that nowadays grocery store market is extremely highly competitive in all segments and formats (Biedronka,Carrefour, Auchan , Lidl…). One can also observe the evolution of attitudes among consumers who, encouraged by the low prices of basic products, increasingly purchased luxury goods, which only recently appeared regularly on shopping lists. French wines, Greek olives and Spanish ham are no longer rare delicacies bought only for grand occasions but products consumed regularly in many households. Accelerating e-commerce: the total value of on line sales of fast moving consumer goods in Poland is estimated to be EUR 120 million. Due to the rapid growth of this segment, this market is expected to be worth twice as much by 2018. Both the number of transactions and the average value of the basket are increasing rapidly (for Tesco, the average on line basket is already 4–5 times larger than traditional shopping). However, the availability and increasing popularity of mobile applications can pose a challenge for many companies. Not all chains—far from it—have launched on line shopping services.
Online shopping has been around since the start of the internet. Online grocery shopping has been has been hindered by the high cost of delivery beared by consumers. Recently, Countdown launched their online supermarket in New Zealand. This was preceded by overseas supermarkets such as Tesco, Walmart, even Amazon starting online shopping for groceries.