Retail Purchasing and Supply Chain Management

Running head: RETAIL PURCHASING AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Retail Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
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1RETAIL PURCHASING AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Retailing has become more complex and challenging with thousands of stores, micro-
apps, micro-suits and commerce networks covering multiple geographies, and that too with
the consumers who expect to purchase, be fulfilled and to be able to return anywhere (Kim,
Allaway and Ellinger 2015). Being in touch with the consumers is a key challenge for all the
retailers. The concept to create frequently refreshed, the local markets has emerged as a way
to further accurately tailored merchandise offerings to the market demand. This essay will
focus on the role of purchasing and supply in the Sainsbury super market. It will discuss the
primary components of the purchasing and supplying chains and it will briefly analyse the
implications of management as well. The essay will further elaborate on the financial
implications of purchasing and supply decisions of Sainsbury.
Sainsbury is regarded as the third largest chain of supermarkets and the longest
standing food retailing chain that is situated in United Kingdom (Baines 2014). It supplies
about 16.9 per cent share of the entire United Kingdom’s supermarket sector. Sainsbury was
founded in the year 1869 by Sir John James Sainsbury (Sebora et al. 2014). It was observed
to experience a benefit for a specific constancy of management, which evolved from the
family control. The aim of the brand is to become the most trusted retailer in the retail
industry, where people would love to shop and work. Their main goal is to make their
consumers’ lives easier each day by giving them great quality and services at the fair prices.
The brand focuses on designing its strategy in a way in order to mention the changing
marketplace in people shopping patterns. It is based on five important pillars and they are-
great products at fair prices, staffs making the difference, they know their customers better
than anyone else, they are there for their customers, and their values make them difference.
Being one among the major and the longest food retailing chains, the very first Sainsbury
store was established148 years ago. This retail giant serves approximately 16 million

2RETAIL PURCHASING AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
customers weekly. There are more than 400 supermarkets and 301 Sainsbury stores in the
United Kingdom (Metzger 2014). About 148,000 employees are dedicatedly delivering great
products at Fair Prices. Sainsbury has experienced a healthy growth in the past few years.
Along with the food and goods retailing, it also provides the services in the banking,
insurance, and the electronic sector. It is entrenched on generating different varieties of
strategies to meet the consumer demands. The strategy for the marketers, serves as a mentor
for positioning the products, to perform the tasks in various aspects as well, related to the
marketing mix.
Purchasing decisions
The consumer, while making purchasing decisions, is observed to have narrowed their
consideration set while considering the opinions of other people around. Various unforeseen
circumstances might be considered as valuable in this stage. According to the Maslow’s
hierarchy of Needs, the customer decision making involves several reasons. It is primarily
observed that the consumers prefer to buy such products that they feel like is important to
them and while considering the esteem needs, they prefer to buy certain products that
highlights their status as well (Niemela and Kim 2014). There are times when the
encouragements for buying such products are often supplied by the family members and peer
of the consumers of Sainsbury. In addition, the social needs are also some sense of belonging,
which the consumers of Sainsbury develop interest of buying, also, the safety need is for the
reliability and the security of the customers. The most basic needs of the consumers are the
psychological needs and in order to buy basic needs, no influence is being supplied to them,
as buying what a person need is not subject to influence. The attitudes of the consumers are
measured as the beliefs that are been followed by that person and it has been found that their
attitudes do throw a great impact on their purchasing decision. In prospects of the attitudes,
the consumers of Sainsbury are observed to make decisions like, whether or not they would