Skills and Competencies Required for Sales Executive in UK Supermarket Industry

Career action plan
and self-reflection

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Personal analysis....................................................................................................................3
Career action plan...................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The supermarket industry of UK is a complex landscape in recent times as the world has
undergone significant changes in the light of rampant digitization and changing consumer trends
in the post pandemic world. Likewise, there have also been significant changes in the way people
work in supermarkets and the expectations set upon the workforce by their respective employers.
In order to be employable in this industry, individuals need to develop a diverse skill set which
should prioritize the way they communicate with the influx of customers and duly support them
through their questions and queries while they engage in the purchase of their respective product
requirement(Lyu and Liu, 2021). This report will detail the key competencies which are required
to gain and capture job opportunities in the supermarket and retail sector of UK, a personal
analysis to highlight strengths and weaknesses in potential employability along with a career
action plan to cover the identified gaps and plan future career development accordingly. The
current job profile on the basis of which the evaluation in this report will be based on is sales
executive where the skills and competencies required are excellent written and oral
communication, self motivation, teamwork, domain knowledge regarding sales and marketing
along with other soft skills which are focused on customer engagement.
MAIN BODY
Personal analysis
In order to make myself employable as a sales executive in the supermarket sector of UK
where the customer trends and buying behaviour along with external influences of business
operations changes on a frequent basis, a comprehensive personal evaluation is needed which
puts my personal skill-sets and knowledge to the test to highlight potential strengths and
weaknesses (Doo, and et.al., 2020). The job profile of sales executive in retail is quite complex
and there are multiple roles which must be performed which are detailed herein.
 Engaging with the customers which arrive at the supermarket premises and actively
converse and guide them alongside their entire stay during their shopping
 Advise and recommend customers regarding smart purchases, new product lines and
offers which are constantly run in supermarket chains such as ALDI which is a discounter
and Tesco which is the largest supermarket chain in UK.

 Answering and always being available for customers regarding their potential queries
regarding product prices and features
 Properly administering the supermarket work floor and supervise sales activities while
also contributing to strategy formulation regarding product marketing
 Keeping track of customer profiles and their purchase records through rapid updation
without critical errors
 Calculate and manage the sales related data of the supermarket along with cash handling
and payment processing
 Assisting the front office regarding payment and sales related queries along with cash
counter management is also a major part of the excepted duties of sales executive in
supermarket and retail companies
The combination of all these job roles and responsibilities along with massive
expectations from employers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's and ALDI which are looking to increase
the work load at the shop level of their supermarkets to recoup from pandemic related losses
makes the job of sales executive require multiple combination of skill sets (Zoltners, and et.al.,
2021). I have studied the complex job requirements which are expected in the supermarket
industry segment along with analysing the major technological trends and new product lines
being in development and this has led to me gaining a general idea about the skills I need to
apply for this job. The skill-sets which are needed to apply and secure the job profile of sales
executive along with my current progress regarding the competency level associated with the
identified expertise which are detailed herein.
Communication skills
These skills are the bread and butter for the role of sales executive as most of the time
spent in executing this job on a daily basis is centred around conversing with customers in the
most holistic manner possible (Brown, 2018). Supermarkets are large scale establishments full of
hundreds of different product lines which attracts a lot of customers who must be dealt with
respectfully and all their question and doubts should be solved without any conflicts. I possess
great communication skills due to the extensive amount of participation that I have incurred