Prof. Jorge,
Below is my NU12 for this week – week of April 16, 2012.
Regards,
Michael
--------------------
Online Grocery Delivery
How many times have you been pissed-off in the grocery store because of long-lines? How many hours have been wasted waiting just to get to that cashier? How many times have you encountered asking one of the merchandisers to go back to supermarket racks to check the price of an item and the cashier cannot continue? How you gotten dizzy going back-and-forth alleys-after-alleys trying to find an item or looking for a shopping cart? For married men, what creative ways have you thought of to pick-up those items that only your wife uses? Have you ever paid for something that your child broke or shattered? More importantly, how many times have you been so embarrassed because shopping in the supermarket got out-of-hand and you did not have enough money to pay for what you got or your credit card was declined?
Well, we all experienced the discomforts and annoyance brought about by doing the grocery shopping chore. I would bet my finger if a person who does regularly grocery shopping would not have a story to tell. My mom and I were doing our regular bi-weekly grocery shopping at SM Sta. Rosa last Saturday, April 14, 2012. Unfortunately, because it was that time of the month when salaries are released, the in surge of people getting into the supermarket was unstoppable. More and more people gets into the alleys looking for their own items and lines into the cashier are getting longer and longer. These are just some of the problems that we encounter in the supermarket that pisses us off.
Here are some specific issues that I can enumerate with the current supermarket system. Of course, there are a lot more than what this list contains but I am hoping that this is enough to show the issues:
· Supermarkets are seasonal businesses. This means that there is a particular season or time(s) of the year when there is a sudden increase on the number of customers, such as Christmas, release of salaries, etc. Unfortunately, most supermarkets are not designed to match the increase in the number of people, meaning, not much adjustment can be done by the supermarket and what the shoppers can do is just to wait for their turn in the cashier or wait for an alley to free-up. This is a similar problem with the number of shopping carts. Obviously, this is a waste of time and effort.
· Some supermarkets are not arranged well. Racks and display areas can be very confusing and sometimes, you need to look for them or ask merchandisers for help.
· In addition to this, some of the displays (such are those in bottles or glass) are in areas / rack levels where children can reach. This can result to breakage and parents have to pay for it.
· Going to the supermarket can be a very tedious job and sometimes you really have to set aside a time for it in the morning or mid-afternoon just to complete the chore.
· Because shopping carts are so exposed, passers-by usually see what is in your cart. Sometimes it becomes annoying as you see people stare at the cart and check on the person pushing it.
· Advertising in the supermarket is so intense. There are a lot of items in front of you and unfortunately, this sometimes causes shopping to get out-of-the-budget. In addition to this, you only find out about the total price of your grocery at the cashier – where it can be embarrassing to come back or return or items.
· There is difficulty ensuring that none of the items are destroyed or spoiled. For example, some people pick-up items on the freezer and simply leaves them on the open racks in case they do not want to purchase it anymore. This can cause spoilage of the items. Another example would be the items that fall on the floor and other shoppers only kick them somewhere else.
· In addition, there is a lot of difficulty controlling FIFO or First-In-First-Out, which is the main warehouse management system in a supermarket. Since most of the items are perishable, non-compliance to FIFO can result to spoilage.
· Finally, there is a huge inventory requirement because displays have to be extensive to make the supermarket attractive. This is of course aside from the fact that supermarket building has to be maintained. These can be costs to the company.
In summary, there are a lot issues and problems in the current system of the supermarket. This involves both the shoppers and business owners as well. The challenge is make the system convenient to both of these parties.
Basics of the Idea:
Given this premise, I thought of a new idea – online grocery delivery. The procedure is very simple. The shopper goes into the Internet, do a log-in, pick the item and indicate the quantity per item on an extensive list of supermarket products and closes the transaction by paying through online payment schemes. Once the transaction is done, the warehouse of the online supermarket system would assemble the grocery items and delivers it to customer. Sounds pretty simple and much more convenient, right? The key to the system is the platform / software that will be used. The features of the software will determine whether the shopping experience will be truly convenient or not. It must be taken note that at this point, the main advantage of this system is convenience compared to the current practice.
Platform of the Proposed Online System:
Whoever gets into this type of business can have two choices on how to create the software / platform. He can either have software developed by web developers or use currently available open source (software that has already been developed for a specific use, usually free of charge) software that can be found in the Internet. The former, obviously, has more disadvantages over the latter in terms of cost and time. In the effort to further develop this idea, I went to the Internet and looked for possible e-commerce platforms and came across www.LiteCommerce.com.
LiteCommerce is a PHP+MySQL-based e-commerce software is created to make running e-commerce store as easy as surfing the web. It is an open source type of software that can be downloaded and installed. Along with several other softwares that are available in the market, it can act as a buying and selling point as well as a Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. LiteCommerce has two primary interfaces:
· Customer interface (shopping cart plus integrated product catalog)
Some of the main functions of the software are: (1) online / e-commerce buying and selling, (2) users can either set-up e-commerce business or buy online from existing users and (3) create e-commerce websites. Table 1 summarizes the features of www.LiteCommerce.com.
Set-Up and Software Architecture
|
· Free open-source PHP/MySQL solution
· Can work as a standalone online store and in connection with Drupal CMS with tons of ready-made Drupal modules
· Web-based installation wizard that installs both LiteCommerce and Drupal (when run from the Ecommerce CMS package)
· Storefront sections and blocks can be managed in the Drupal user interface
· Modern object-oriented MVC architecture
· Flexible modular system allows customizing without hacks to core files and simplifies upgrades
· HTTPS/SSL support
· Fully customizable design & layout
· Compatible with popular browsers:
IE 7+, Firefox 3+, Chrome 8+, Safari 4+, Opera 10+
· Using ORM technique
|
Shopping Experience
|
· Storefront sections and blocks transparently integrate with Drupal pages into a single ecommerce website
· Catalog pages are updated via
· Fast
· Full drag-and-drop support
· Products quick look
· Image galleries with a popup image browser and an in-page zoom function
· Facebook comments tab
· Mouse wheel updates product quantities
· Fast one-page checkout (working for anonymous customers as well)
|
Marketing and Promotion
|
· Custom search engine friendly URLs (when connected to Drupal)
· Custom
· OpenGraph meta tags used when sharing product pages in Facebook, Google+ or other social network
· Featured products, Bestsellers, New arrivals (paid module) and Coming soon (paid module) blocks promoting products in your shop
· Market price
· Products on sale
|
Orders and Shipping
|
· Address book
· Order history for customers and administrator
· Real-time shipping quotes from Australia Post and USPS servers
· Unlimited number of admin-defined delivery methods
· Digital delivery
· Flat, weight, order total and range based shipping rates
· International, domestic and local shipping
· Sales tax and UK VAT
· Export of the shop statistics to Google Analytics and Facebook Insights
|
Performance
|
· Speed optimized architecture
· Support for Memcached
· Following Google and Yahoo! optimization recommendations
|
Catalog Management
|
· Unlimited number of products and categories
· Product options with optional price modifiers
· Inventory tracking per product
· Automatic thumbnail generation
· Downloadable product files
· Import/export to CSV files
|
www.LiteCommerce.com is a one-stop-shop software that can be used by anyone who would like to start off with an online business. Its features allow the users to better manage the business, including advertising (within the software), inventory management and customer database management. Further, it has a very user-friendly interface making the shopping experience hassle-free.
Actual Inventory Management:
Probably the biggest advantage of the online grocery delivery system to the supermarket business is a significant reduction on inventory. This is most especially true if the company is purely online-based. The management of the company's inventory can be done a lot easier since it does not need to maintain inventory on the supermarket shelves. Further, it can set a smaller re-order point since it only needs to maintain inventory ready for delivery. If the business progressed further, the company can have tie-up with suppliers for a just-in-time delivery. In fact, the company can have a tie-up with a supermarket such that it will only purchase on the supermarket what is ordered. This way, no inventory has to be maintained. The company will just serve as a trading firm or a middle man.
Pricing and Delivery Charges:
One of the items that the company needs to be very careful is pricing. Groceries are among the normal goods and thus, consumers are very elastic to this type of commodity. This means that any additions in price result to consumers shifting to other sources / suppliers. It is suggested that the price of the commodities should be the same or at par with what is available to the existing supermarkets. Delivery charges may be added though. It can be a fixed amount or depends on where the location of the customer is. 4
0 comments:
Post a Comment