FY028 Inquiry Based Learning: Analyzing Retail Trends at Woolworths

This report analyzes current trends in the retail industry and their impact on Woolworths' business performance. It identifies trends such as Buy Now Pay Later, the impact of COVID-19, and globalization of production. The study uses primary data from a questionnaire and secondary data to explore challenges faced by Woolworths, including digital disruptions, maintaining customer base levels, evolving customer expectations, and high costs. The report also examines the importance of Porter's Five Forces model in improving Woolworths' business performance, highlighting the threats of new entrants and substitutes, bargaining power of customers and suppliers, and rivalry among existing firms. The report concludes with recommendations for Woolworths to address digital disruptions, enhance customer base levels, meet evolving customer expectations, and manage costs effectively.

FY028 Inquiry Based
Learning

Table of Contents
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Task1 ...............................................................................................................................................3
1) Three current retail trends.......................................................................................................3
2) research aim, objectives and questions...................................................................................4
Research aim:..............................................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
Primary Analysis:........................................................................................................................5
Secondary Analysis:....................................................................................................................9
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................10
References .....................................................................................................................................11
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................12

Introduction
Retailing is the market which includes all the activities that involves the sale of products
and services directly to the consumer by a company which are usually purchased for family or
personal use. It is the selling of certain services and merchandise to its customers. It involves the
selling of individual small lots or units to a large number of customers by the help of business set
up for that specific purpose. In the present report, Woolworths has taken into consideration
which is an Australian chain of grocery stores and supermarkets founded in 1924 and
headquartered in Bella Vista, Australia.
Main Body
Task1
1) Three current retail trends.
Buy Now Pay Later: It refers to the use of instalment plans in order to pay off consumer goods
over a given time while being able to use the product immediately (Aggarwal and et.al., 2019).
The consumers can get the benefit that they can able to get the product immediately and if they
can make repayment by pay little to no interest, on time. It is the payment option where a
consumer can purchase a good or service immediately. Instead the BNPL service provider pays
the bill on behalf of customer and at the end of the given time that is mostly a month a consumer
is required to pay back to buy now pay later service provider the accumulated amount. In context
to Woolworth company, they provide the buy now pay later service to its customers which help
the company to increase the sales and profitability in the market effectively and efficiently. As
BNPL provides amazing benefits to the customers as well as company. It helps to increases the
affordability and instant credit at hand (Ashima and et.al., 2021). For both the company and
customers it provides secure and quick transactions and in addition to this the zero rate of interest
on repayment.

Impact Of COVID 19 On Retailers: The digital economy has boomed at the time of COVID 19
crises. The several potential trends are shaping the pandemic era retail environment as the
retailer consumer interactions will be defined by safety and health expectations. Demands for
convenience will be drive by even more contactless transactions. The consumer loyalty has been
fallen down to the typical brands. In context to Woolworth company, it provides the contactless
payments to its consumers by using online transaction methods as it could replace in every single
in person purchase. It made the use of expanded or new delivery or pick up options from their
physical, local stores (Jie and Gengatharen, 2018). New trending product categories has been
made as around 20-30% of the business during pandemic peak moved online and the grocery
penetration settled at 10-14% at the end of the year 2020. The company faces the issues of social
media shopping at the time of COVID 19 crises as it lack to fulfil the demand and unable to add
commerce features etc. The Woolworth company faces the challenges to provide the goods and
services to its customers at the doorsteps by maintaining proper safety, hygiene and taking all the
COVID 19 precautions which do not harm others.
Globalisation Of Production: Globalisation has become increasingly important in the early of
21st century as many big companies looking forward to grow and expand its business in the other
countries in order to earn profit and increase market share. It will achieve the long term success
by concentrating on thing what everyone wants rather than worrying about details of what
everybody thinks they might like (Kautish and Sharma, 2018). In context to Woolworth, by the
help of globalisation the company can able to increase the market share, profitability and build
the brand image in the global market and achieve its objectives for the longer run. It also faces
the issues especially in the developing countries rather than in developed countries. As in
developing countries thy people are not so aware of using the latest technology and machinery in
order to produce goods and provide to its customers. Communication technology has been
dramatically increased the responsiveness and speed of wireless and mobile networks as the
introduction of 4G and 5G technologies has been made.
2) research aim, objectives and questions.
Research aim:
“To analyse the latest trends within retail industry and its impact on business
performance of an organisation” A study on Woolworths
Research Objectives:

 To analyse the current trends prevailing within the retail industry.
 To determine the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the current trends
prevailing within the retail industry.
 To identify the importance of porter’s five force model in improving business
performance of Woolworths (Paredes And et.al., 2018).
Research Questions:
 What are the current trends prevailing within the retail industry?
 What are the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the current trends
prevailing within the retail industry?
 What is the importance of porter’s five force model in improving business performance
of Woolworths?
Task 2
Primary Analysis:
Questionnaire:
Q1. Do you have knowledge about current trends of retail industry? Frequency
a) Yes 15
b) No 5
Q2. What are the current trends prevailing within the retail industry? Frequency
a) Globalisation of products 5
b) Impact of Covid-19 5
c) Buy now pay later model 4
d) Artificial intelligence 6
Q3. What are the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the
current trends prevailing within the retail industry?
Frequency
a) Digital Disruptions 3
b) Maintaining customer base level (Pu and Lam, 2021) 4
c) Evolving customer expectations ‘ 6
d) Occurrence of high cost 7
Q4. As per your viewpoint, is analysis of porter’s five force model help
in improving business performance of Woolworths
Frequency

a) Yes 17
b) No 30
Analysis and Interpretation:
Q1. Do you have knowledge about current trends of retail industry? Frequency
a) Yes 15
b) No 5
Interpretation: From the above graph, it is interpreted that 15 respondents out of total 20
participants have knowledge about current trends that is prevail within the retail industry. In
addition to this, 5 respondents have no knowledge about it and therefore it is important for
organisation to ensure that its associated people have knowledge about current trends so that they
can deal with it in a proper manner (Ren, Chan and Siqin, 2020).
Q2. What are the current trends prevailing within the retail industry? Frequency
a) Globalisation of products 5
b) Impact of Covid-19 5

c) Buy now pay later model 4
d) Artificial intelligence 6
Interpretation: By analysing the above graph, it is stated that artificial intelligence is one of the
major trend prevail in retail industry which is said by 6 respondents from the total 20
participants. In addition to this, globalisation of products and impact of Covid-19 is the current
trend and is said by 5 participants respectively (Reshmy and et.al., 2021). The remaining 4
participants said that buy now pay later model is the current trends prevail within the retail
industry.
Q3. What are the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the
current trends prevailing within the retail industry?
Frequency
a) Digital Disruptions 3
b) Maintaining customer base level 4
c) Evolving customer expectations ‘ 6
d) Occurrence of high cost 7

Interpretation: By analysing the above graph, it is analysed that occurrence of high cost is the
challenge faced by respective organisation in dealing with the current trends prevailing within
the retail industry which is said by 7 respondents from the total 20 participants. Along with this,
digital disruptions and maintaining customer base level is the issue which is said by 3 and 4
respondents (Ryding, Henninger and Cano, eds., 2018) . The remaining 3 respondents state that
digital disruptions is the challenge faced by respective company in dealing with the current
trends prevailing within the retail industry.
Q4. As per your viewpoint, is analysis of porter’s five force model help
in improving business performance of Woolworths
Frequency
a) Yes 17
b) No 3

Interpretation: From the above graph, it is interpreted that 17 respondents from the total 20 is
agree with the point that porter’s five force model help in improving business performance of
respective organisation. The remaining 3 respondents is not agree with the point.
Secondary Analysis:
1) To analyse Current Trends prevailing within the retail industry
Globalisation of products: It becomes increasingly important in the early 21st century as it refers
to the sell of goods and services in other countries in order to increase the sales, productivity,
profitability, market share and brand image in the global market.
Impact of Covid-19: In the retail sector the impact of COVID 19 affect the market and increase
the trend on online shopping and online payment instead of paying in cash.
Buy now pay later model: The consumers can get the benefit that they can able to get the
product immediately and if they can make repayment by pay little to no interest, on time. It helps
the consumer in buy products instantly and can pay them later at a given period of time.
Artificial intelligence: It refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines which are
programmed in order to mimic their actions and to think like human. It makes thinks easier and
simpler in today's time (Wang and Ha-Brookshire, 2018).
2) To determine the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the current trends
prevailing within the retail industry.

Digital Disruptions: It is the most challenging part for the company as it lack of a digital
transformation strategy and lack of proper IT skills. As the Woolworths company need to
overcome from this challenge in order to increase its productivity and sales.
Maintaining customer base level: It is difficult for the company to maintain the base level of
customers. As they lack to offer premium service to their customers and trained the staff
constantly which creates the challenging part.
Evolving customer expectations: The company sometimes lack in evolving the customer
expectations and which can able to decrease the sales and profitability in the market.
Occurrence of high cost: The products prices of the company sometimes higher than its
competitors and due to that it looses its customers and productivity in the market and the profit
margin also declines.
3) To identify the importance of porter’s five force model in improving business
performance of Woolworths.
Porter's five forces of the Woolworths are as follows:
Threat Of New Entrant: (Low) This can be low as Woolworths is a well known company and
difficult for the new company to enter in this market and able to give tough competition to the
already established market which has good market share.
Bargaining Power Of Customers: (High) It tends to be high as consumers have many other
options available in the market. As there are many suppliers and the customers are few in
comparison.
Bargaining Power Of Supplier: (High) It also tends to be high as when the industry is supplied
by few suppliers and there are many suppliers are available in the market.
Threat Of Substitute: (High) substitute of Woolworths are available in the very large number and
consumer can easily shift to other products which are cost effective.
Rivalry Between Existing Firms: (High) this is also high as the firms could be determine the
retail industry attractiveness and the competition is on the price based.
Recommendations
From the above report the Woolworths company can face and solve the challenges of
digital disruption by providing its services at the digital platforms and provide good quality
services to them securely and safely. Customers base level can be increased by providing and
offering premium quality products at an affordable prices to them. Evolving customer

expectations can be increased by the help of increasing market share and satisfy all the needs and
wants at an optimum level. Occurrence of high cost as this challenge can be overcome by using
latest technologies machines so that which helps in reducing the cost of production and can sell
its goods at a competitive prices to its customers which helps the company to increase the market
share and profitability for the longer run.
References
Aggarwal, A. and et.al., 2019. Internet of things driven perceived value co-creation in smart
cities of the future: a PLS-SEM based predictive model. Journal of Computational and
Theoretical Nanoscience, 16(9), pp.4053-4058.
Ashima, R. and et.al., 2021. Automation and manufacturing of smart materials in Additive
Manufacturing technologies using Internet of Things towards the adoption of Industry
4.0. Materials Today: Proceedings, 45, pp.5081-5088.
Jie, F. and Gengatharen, D., 2018. Australian food retail supply chain analysis. Business Process
Management Journal.
Kautish, P. and Sharma, R., 2018. Consumer values, fashion consciousness and behavioural
intentions in the online fashion retail sector. International Journal of Retail &
Distribution Management.
Paredes, K. M. B. And et.al., 2018, June. Retail innovation: perceptions, management, and
challenges of a systematic approach. In ISPIM Innovation Symposium (pp. 1-15). The
International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).
Pu, S. and Lam, J. S. L., 2021. Blockchain adoptions in the maritime industry: a conceptual
framework. Maritime Policy & Management, 48(6). pp.777-794.
Ren, S., Chan, H. L. and Siqin, T., 2020. Demand forecasting in retail operations for fashionable
products: methods, practices, and real case study. Annals of Operations
Research, 291(1). pp.761-777.
Reshmy, R. and et.al., 2021. Advanced biomaterials for sustainable applications in the food
industry: Updates and challenges. Environmental Pollution, 283, p.117071.
Ryding, D., Henninger, C. E. and Cano, M. B. eds., 2018. Vintage luxury fashion: Exploring the
rise of the secondhand clothing trade. Springer.
Wang, B. and Ha-Brookshire, J. E., 2018. Exploration of digital competency requirements within
the fashion supply chain with an anticipation of industry 4.0. International Journal of
Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 11(3). pp.333-342.\

APPENDIX
Questionnaire
Q1. Do you have knowledge about current trends of retail industry?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2. What are the current trends prevailing within the retail industry?
a) Globalisation of products
b) Impact of Covid-19
c) Buy now pay later model
d) Artificial intelligence
Q3. What are the challenges faced by Woolworths in dealing with the current trends prevailing
within the retail industry?
a) Digital Disruptions
b) Maintaining customer base level
c) Evolving customer expectations ‘
d) Occurrence of high cost
Q4. As per your viewpoint, is analysis of porter’s five force model help in improving business
performance of Woolworths
a) Yes
b) No