CW2 Project: Safer Supermarket Shopping Experience in Pandemic Times

This project report examines the impact of the pandemic on the grocery and retail industries, focusing on the implementation of click and collect systems to provide a safer shopping experience. It covers the click and collect process from both the customer and retailer perspectives, detailing steps such as order placement, notification, and pickup, as well as order fulfillment and preparation. The report further addresses the changes needed for click and collect areas, including designated spaces, pickup procedures, staff training, and the use of technology to reduce touchpoints. It also explores the challenges faced by businesses, such as supply chain disruptions and inventory management, and proposes solutions like economic order quantity and ABC analysis. The project concludes that the pandemic significantly altered shopping behaviors and emphasizes the importance of adapting to ensure customer and staff safety through technology and efficient processes, while also offering insights into inventory management strategies for daily essentials.

Project CW2 Safer
Supermarket Shopping
Experience
Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
From the point of view of customer............................................................................................3

From the point of view of Retailer..............................................................................................4
Following are the steps that involve the flow of customer, product and information.................4
Task 2...........................................................................................................................................5
Supply chain of goods.................................................................................................................7
Availability of daily essentials.....................................................................................................7
Inventory management model.....................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
As every industry is facing the impact of pandemic from the past 18 months. It had great impact
on the functioning of the business. Many small business faces challenges in order to survive in
this crisis. Business owners who bare operating their operations in rental premises have to shut
their business because of the unavailability of funds (Zimmer, McElrone and Steeves, 2021. The
major impact of pandemic is on grocery and retail stores and it can be seen disturbance in supply
chain management, shortage of lorry drivers along with safeguard the staff from virus. This
project report will cover the process of click and collect process where customers can get their
order. In addition to that, it will also cover the changes which are needed for the click + collect
area along with the roles and responsibilities of organisation. Further, it will cover the framework
which helps in reducing the touchpoints that will be limits the virus.
TASK
Pandemic have changed the buying behaviour of the customers and they want to purchase the
grocery but in a safer way. So it becomes challenging for the retailer stores to provide the
products in a safer way. So they have introduced a new system, click and collect that allows
customers to order their products and can collect from the stores (Cappelli and Cini, 2020). This
will minimise the interaction along with keep safe the staff and customer. Following is the
process of click and collect
From the point of view of customer
 Placing of order and paying – It is the first step that involves the p-lacing f
products that the customer want to buy and stores provide online platform or
mobile application that provides the ease of choosing the product from their
mobile phones.
 Receives notification – As the customer have successfully placed the order, then
he will receive the notification regarding the order that is ready and customer can
slot their time and collect from the store.
 Collecting order – After customer gets notifies about the order, he will go and
pick the order at the pickup point with proper precaution.

From the point of view of Retailer
 Receives order online – Stores have the software that notifies them that they
have received of order from a customer.
 Collect items and prepare for pickup – Once the store accepted the order, then
it started collecting and gathering the items of customer and prepares for the
pickup.
 Notification to customer –Once the order has been ready, store notifies the
customer that his order is ready for pickup and can collect from pickup point.
 Gives order to customer – In this process, it handover the order to the customer
with proper precautions to keep safe themselves from virus.
Following are the steps that involve the flow of customer, product and information
 Establishing of ordering system – In order to provide the click and collect
facility to customers, it is needed to have a platform that helps the customer in
placing their order from their mobile phones. The store may develop websites,
app or can avail the service of third party app that provides same service but at a
nominal charge. It is the initial stage from where the flow of information takes
place.
 Designation of space in store – It is the next step that involves the designation of
store of products till they are picked up. It is needed to have sufficient space that
store can place their customer’s orders till the time of pick up. The space should
be easily accessible and must be protected. It is the secondary step in which the
flow of products takes place as store have to decide where they can keep customer
orders.
 Creating a pickup procedure –In this step, flow of information and product
takes place, as stores have to make a suitable procedure that will keep safe from
being infected from the virus (Chenarides, Manfredo and Richards, 2021). The
managements should ensure that the staff must be vaccinated as one staff could
infect the other and thus may lead to closure of store. All the staff have to put on
the mask on their face so that they can be safe from virus. All the precautions

should be taken care for the smooth process of click and delivery process. The
stores should have made separate lines for the high volume customers so they
don’t get infected from customer and staff. The manage should use the clear
signage from which the customer get to know where they have to go.
 Training to staff - It is beneficial for the staff and customers to keep themselves
safe and protected. As the staff should be trained as it is completely new for them
and should told them about their roles and responsibilities that they have to
perform along with keeping them safe aside (Osborn, 2020). They should be run
through the procedure for a few times so that’s staff gets familiar and comfortable
with that.
It is the management duty to keep their employees safe along with profit making.
As they should ensure that each staff should be vaccinated with both doses
perform their work by taking proper precaution. The staff should be provided with
proper training as how they have to carry out their function in this new method.
The pickup layout should be clearly stated to both customers and staff so that they
get safe from being contacted. The stores should be provided with automation
facility of contactless payment or enable pay on delivery by scanning QR. This
reduces the contact among the staff and customer.
Task 2
As the pandemic has affected various business industries and it becomes more challenging for
the companies to operate their functions optimally (Hwang, Nageswaran. and Cho, 2020). It is
needed to apply and implement changes so that companies can sustain in this crisis situation.
Companies have to introduce new changes in click and collect process. Following are the
essentials of this method and the changes needed for the same.
 Changes in plan – The stores should formulate the effective plans so that they
can earn profit along with keeping themselves safe and protected from safeguard.
They may introduce the facility of online ordering and online payment so that it
becomes easy for the customer to get their products.

 Keeping the availability of inventory – Due to pandemic, it becomes
challenging for the online stores to keep the adequate quantity of essential
products. It had impacted the supply chain and its operations and due to this, it
becomes complex to have all the products. So it is the responsibility of the stores
that they have to regularly check their inventory so that customer won’t get return
without buying. They should update their inventory as well on online platform
that becomes easy for the customer to know about the status (Francis, 2020).
 Opting the technology -As the pandemic strike in whole world, many stores and
companies re opting the technology to boost their sales volume. Stores should
have to opt the right technology that would help in notifying about the customer
order and creates a bridge between the customer and retailer stores.
 Reducing the touchpoints – The stores should reduce the touchpoints as it will
help in eliminating the risk of virus. The delivery person should deliver products
at a distance so that it can promote contactless delivery (Pantano and Vannucci,,
2019). At the entrance, the staff should check the temperature and sanitize the
hands of customers and provides their order via automation or by availing
contactless delivery.
 Managing the fluctuation of timing – The stores should manage their timing
fluctuations so that they can cope up with peak demand. They should start
collecting the order essentials so that they could manage their timing at the time
of peak demand or pick up order. It becomes difficult for the store to provide the
order as if the staff members are struggling for gathering the items of other order.
The stores should take precautions as they have to provide automation for some products in order
to make their process effective and faster. They should be provided with facility of ordering from
online so that customer gets their product without in contacting with other function. At the of
delivering the order, the store must disinfect the whole order with alcohol based sanitizer
(Grimmer, 2017).

Supply chain of goods
Due to the pandemic, it adversely affected the supply chain that becomes a major
challenge for the store to cope up with such a critical problem. Every household
needs products that are being used in their houses. There was stoppage of raw
materials or are unavailable temporarily that affects the manufacturing units too.
Without having raw material, manufacturing units are of no use. So, it is needed
to have proper supply of raw material in order to smooth functioning of other
units.
Availability of daily essentials
It is very important for the stores to manage its inventory and its daily essentials
so that it could provide all the necessary items that are used in daily life such as
milk and vegetables. It should ensure that they have properly supply chain of
these essentials and customers do not face shortage of it. They are the necessary
items that every household need in their daily life. There should be adequate
quantity of these goods so that customers will not face any deficiency of this.
These are the basic necessity of every individual and its shortage may arise
problem to customers.
Inventory management model
 Economic order Quantity – This model helps the stores in forecasting the
demand of products based on the previous data. It helps in eliminating the risk of
shortage or excess inventory. It forecasts the future needs and enables the
manager to take decision related to management of inventory.
 Inventory Production Quantity – This model helps the stores in disclosing the
number of items that the business enterprise should arrange in order to minimise
the holding expenses and arrangement expenses. By opting this model, the
company can lower its overall cost and enjoy higher profitability.
 ABC analysis – This models helps in arranging the inventory based on its
significance. It helps in focusing on the products that have high demand so that
they can generate more revenue.

 Fixed reorder quantity system – In this inventory model, a fixed units of criteria
are set and whenever the inventory goes down form that level, it automatically
replenishes to the upper level so that the company would not face shortage of its
inventory.

CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it was concluded that pandemic have affected many business
industries and it becomes more challenging for the groceries outlet to operate their function as
they have threat to be affected by virus. As any one of the staff gets tested and found positive
then other staff members who have come in contact have to self-isolate for 10 days. They have to
provide customer with a click and collect platform for where they can place their order and pay
online and opt the hassle free service. The staff should be provided with proper training so that
they can keep themselves from virus attack. There must be proper sanitization of products before
handing to customer.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hwang, E.H., Nageswaran, L. and Cho, S.H., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on omnichannel retail:
Drivers of online sales during pandemic. Available at SSRN 3657827.
Zimmer, M., McElrone, M. and Steeves, E.T.A., 2021. Feasibility and Acceptability of a “Click
& Collect” WIC Online Ordering Pilot. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics, 121(12), pp.2464-2474.
Osborn, M.W., 2020. Mobile Grocery Click-N-Collect Service Quality: The Impact of Product
Substitutes and Pickup Customer Relations on Customer Loyalty (Doctoral dissertation,
Jacksonville University).
Pantano, E. and Vannucci, V., 2019. Who is innovating? An exploratory research of digital
technologies diffusion in retail industry. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 49,
pp.297-304.
Grimmer, L., 2017. The rise of click and collect in shopping.
Cappelli, A. and Cini, E., 2020. Will the COVID-19 pandemic make us reconsider the relevance
of short food supply chains and local productions?. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 99,
p.566.
Chenarides, L., Manfredo, M. and Richards, T.J., 2021. COVID‐19 and food supply
chains. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 43(1), pp.270-279.
Francis, J.R., 2020. COVID-19: implications for supply chain management. Frontiers of health
services management, 37(1), pp.33-38.