Answer:
1. How do customers judge the quality of a supermarket?
They judge the quality of a supermarket depending on their values and most urgent needs.
Customers who value quality, and even luxury, will say that a good supermarket is one that offers high quality products.
Customers who value price, will prefer a low-cost supermarket.
2. Indicate how and why each of these factors is important to the successful operation of a supermarket:
a. Customer satisfaction - a very important factor because it determines how well the supermarket is serving its customers.
b. Forecasting - the supermarket needs to forecast all sorts of things, from, sales forecasts, to profit forescasts, to costs forecasts.
c. Capacity planning - the supermarket needs to know what it is actually able to do, and what projects it can embark on, for this, it needs to do a lot of capacity planning.
d. Location - Location is extremely important for a supermarket. It determines a large part of the customer demand because customers prefer supermarkets to be close to where they live.
e. Inventory management - Supermarkets need to manage inventories carefully, specially because a lot of the goods that a supermarket sells, are perishables.
f. Layout of the store - The Supermakert needs to be careful when determining the layout of the store. Customers want a layout that is easy to navigate, and where goods are placed according to a coherent classification.
g. Scheduling - The supermarket needs to establish a convenient schedule for its customer base.
What are some of the ways Wegmans uses technology to gain an edge over its competition?
Wegmans is characterized for its early adoption of ground-breaking technologies. For example, recently Wegmans developed a mobile application to assist blind shoppers.
