Supermarket Tour
Table of Contents
The concept of supermarket was initiated to facilitate and promote purchases, thus its exterior and interior designs, internal arrangements and friendlier customer service that made the store more preferable to many shoppers.
Many people normally purchase goods from supermarkets, which are spread in many parts of the country. When one visits a supermarket, he/she recognizes that the building, its organization, and design is meant to facilitate their shopping. It is all about a psychological concept that keeps one to continuously visit such stores. Therefore, this essay is an analysis of New Pioneer Coop Supermarket, located in Iowa City, IA. It is written from the point of view of a shopper. The below map shows the physical location of the supermarket.
Store Employees
The analysis of the store employees will be done based on direct observation of the interaction among employees and that between employee and customers. Concerning the employees of the supermarket, the value of a comprehensive code of conduct to guide organizational activities is vested in the spirit of the leaders to exercise the organizational culture (Hitt 1). As leaders of the supermarket showed humility in their work, one of the primary responsibilities was to help shape a culture of ethics of the organization. This was achieved since the leader behaves in a responsible way to serve as a role model in the organization. Since personal values can be hurtful and destructive in an organization, carrying out self evaluation to each worker employed at different level could assist the organization and its people to increase the respect to personal and organizational values, thus being able to boost the volume and quality of services at the superstore.
Calculate the cost of essay
In such situation, issues of negative values such as discrimination that might be witnessed in most organizations would not arise in the supermarket since the workers embrace unity in diversity to achieve the organization’s objectives. The reason justifying this argument was that an effective process evaluating the adherence to the outlined values ensures that each person understands the limits and the nature of relationships among the workers. In this regard, self assessment/evaluation helps in harmonizing the relationship between different categories of the workers, thus making it a better recipe for reducing prejudice so that there could be information flow from the higher level down the management system.
Shopper
As a result of population growth and demands from various categories of shoppers, the development of supermarket became necessary. It was also aimed at improving shopping convenience, increasing the quantity of foodstuff and lowering the cost of the products to enable the country feed its population. In fact, growing and processing corn was cheap and fast, thus could not affect the country’s supply chain. Hitt asserted that over reliance on supermarket shopping increases the chances of impulse buying from the store. A critical check of products in the supermarket indicated that the Americans are failing to get correct quantities of other food supplements resulting into over consumption of manufactured foods as opposed to the natural ones.
On my visit as a shopper, I discovered that the concept of supermarket depicted a capitalist model of food production and storage to encourage shopping. It is also aimed at turning human needs into merchandise for the sole purpose of making profits and improving the efficiency of shopping. Therefore, the supermarket focused more on availing various products profit rather than processing food that feed or nourish the world’s population since it has not spread worldwide. Additionally, the capitalist model has cited for the continued rise in the prices of basic need products in the supermarket to be as a result of social, economic, environmental, ideological and ethical crises.
People’s diversity and their needs also contributed to the rise of the supermarket because different products that suit the needs of various groups of consumers are offered at the store. Even though the yields from the farms increased, people became more exposed to the chemicals that were used in the production because there may have no rules to regulate the usage of such chemicals. That justified the increased interest in supermarket products among the potential consumers, who believed that such products met acceptable health standards.
Benefit from Our Service: Save 25% Along with the first order offer - 15% discount, you save extra 10% since we provide 300 words/page instead of 275 words/page
Naturalistic Observation
As a result, the capitalist model of food production may have not been the best method to adopt because it protected mostly the large multinational companies as opposed to emerging supermarkets like New Pioneer Coop. I also noted that many people have grown their own food, a situation that has affected their dietary preference and the kinds of products they purchased from the supermarket. For example, most people preferred processed products to vegetables, which they had in their kitchen garden.
Essentially, the supermarket has changed the purchasing and eating experience because some people are not able to control the quantity of products as required for their domestic consumption at any particular meal. This is different from the foods bought in the supermarkets where the manufacturer has the sole authority of the quantity of carbohydrates, protein and vitamins that is to be supplemented in the food products sold to the consumers. I think that uncontrolled purchases from supermarkets and consumption of food has brought several diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer. This means that the consumer has to be conscious about his or her diet to avoid suffering from such lifestyle diseases, which continue to affect many people globally and encouraged by shopping at the supermarkets, including the New Pioneer Coop.
In most cases, food sold in the supermarket and other highly hygienic conditions is safe for human consumption. The reason for this assurance is that several multinational companies have quality control departments, which test the quality of food manufactured before selling to the wholesalers. In addition, food samples have to be taken to the government’s bureau of standard that tests the quality of the manufactured food.
In my opinion, scientific inventions in the field of biotechnology may water down the achievements made since genetically modified foods are finding their way into the supermarket. In order to ensure that the food that are found in the supermarket we eat are safe and consumers are protected, the government should come up with scientific and commercial ways that focuses on specific nutrients as an alternative of unique benefits that is derived from eating whole food. I believe that the people should eat quality food instead of eating a lot of food that has low nutritional value. Taking New Pioneer Coop as an example, the entity has an advantage over the other small stores as most people tend to do all their shopping in large stores and supermarkets.
The Store Exterior
New Pioneer Coop is a supermarket that serves most parts of Iowa City and its neighborhood. A tour of the supermarket sparked my interest in the large size of the food chain store that houses a number of products supplied to facilitate purchasing & eating habits or diet, and the safety of the food that we eat. The building has a big signage at the entrance. The building was constructed using a standardized architectural design that conveys its strength. The setting of the building was positioned in an accessible location to provide room for entrance, cars pack and offloading. Essentially, issues of processing, supply of human food, and its safety in the supermarket cause a lot of worries to the consumers in terms of its suitability. According to Hitt, the industrial food chain starts with food sold in the supermarkets which he says that consists mainly of corn products. On my visit, I discovered that the supply and arrangement of different kinds of foodstuff to the supermarket was enhanced by the increase in production of different varieties.
The Store Interior
The first impression of the store is the natural smell of baked products, among many others, the noise of shoppers also greets new shoppers. The internal arrangement in the supermarket aims at improving the quality of service delivery, promotes customer purchases and enhances the appeal of the products to potential users. As I walked into the store, the arrangement and proper display of the products improve efficiency in the selection process of various products. Some of the potential limitations include the inadequate use of technology, leading to poor quality of the products and pilferage of some products on the display. The kind of products in the supermarket also proved that it might be an expensive venture for small companies.
Furthermore, it actually increased the amount of labor required to facilitate sales. The shopper is allowed to walk along all the shelves, but not into areas marked for staff only. All the products are visible except those in the internal stores. A shopper will see customer agents who are mandated to help them find products in the store and other fellow customers. One hears the voices from shoppers communicating, however you cannot extreme noise. The customer also smells foodstuff, but not allowed to smell perfumes. Concerning the payment, one can use credit-card and cash. The supermarket has a range of its own product which gives it power to fully dictate their price since it does not have to wait for suppliers to provide the goods. These products have strengthened the company’s profits and increase its competitive advantage.