1. How do customers judge the quality of a supermarket?

Different customer will judge the quality of a supermarket in different

perspective and in varied ways. The customer may judge upon the terms of their
needs and wants, the customer service that they get and even the quality of the
product sold in the supermarket.
They can also judge the supermarket upon the quality brand. To make sure
that the customer to have good perspective towards the supermarket, the market
should make sure that their supermarket have a wide range of products that
provide different choices to be chosen by customers.
Location is also a very important issue for customer to judge the supermarket. If
the supermarket is at a convenient location it will be easy for the customer to
shop there.
The operation hour of the supermarket will be another consideration for
customers. The supermarket should start its business hour early in the morning
and close at midnight.
Another point is competitive price. As a consumer, they will look at a
cheaper price of the product that they want to buy. The supermarket that offer
the cheapest price for the same product compared to another supermarket will
win customer’s loyalty and attract more customers to purchase in that
supermarket.

2. Indicate how and why each of these factors is important to the successful
operation of a supermarket:
a) Customer satisfaction
Customer loyalty is an important issue for a supermarket. Therefore it is
very important for a supermarket to satisfy the customer. Customer
satisfaction can be measure through the service, products, price of the
product, the customer service provide by the employees, and the
infrastructure in the supermarket. Once the customer is satisfied it will
bring a lot of opportunity for the supermarket.

b) Forecasting
The supermarket should pay more attention on the product forecast so
that their product is always up-to-date, and can fulfilled customer’s
 need. Through forecasting, the supermarket can maintain their optimum
inventory and reduce the cost of uncertainty stock. Instead of improving
the sales performance, forecasting is very important for supermarket.
Forecasting can help the supermarket to compete with their competitors.

c) Capacity planning
A supermarket should have their own capacity planning to make sure
that they are in the right position. A correct capacity planning can help
the supermarket to have more space to sell different products and
fulfilled customer’s need. Through capacity planning, it can help to
make sure that there is enough sales staff for each department.

d) Location
The location of the supermarket should be accessible to the customers.
The supermarket should do a research on the surrounding environment
to make sure that their competitors and what is the customer behavior at
the surrounding area. The supermarket should consider the cost of the
transportation that they need to transfer their product form the
warehouse to the supermarket and the rent cost for the market.

e) Inventory management
Inventory management is very important for a supermarket to make sure
that they have enough inventories to supply and cover the demand of the
customer. It also can enable the supermarket to plan their sales
operation.

f) Layout of the store

The stores should be allocating at different department or section within
a supermarket. This is to ensure that the customer can easily find out
what they need to buy and what they want. The customer may compare
the same product with different brands which locate at the same
department. The fire exits and emergency exit gates can be earmarked
properly.

g) Scheduling
 Scheduling is very important for all departments such as human resource
department, inventory department and etc. Inventory scheduling and
transport scheduling should work together to make sure that there is
enough stock to supply for the customer’s demand in order to carry out
the just-in-time system. The HR scheduling is important to make sure
that there is enough employee to serve the customer and the employee
will not over burdened or even can improve their productivity level.

3. What are some of the ways Wegmans uses technology to gain an edge over its
competition?
Wegmans use new approaches of technology to tracking the inventory and
manage its supply chain. Wegmans also use new ways to maintain its functions
in the meat and produce department to compete their competitors.