The Consumer Benefits and Problems in the Electronic Grocery Store
1. A description of the study
Electronic Grocery Stores are stores where customers make their purchases online. In this research paper, the author investigated 1369 women drawn from all lifestyles (Raijas, 2002). His sample included all women regardless of religion, occupation, and race and citizen status. The research sourced a sample from a wide range of institutions for convenient purposes in a Midwestern metropolitan that had a populace of about one million people.
2. A brief statement of the research method
The author gave questionnaires to the women that he administered in institutions during their meetings. The research provided for a token prize of $1 to each organization upon submitting a fully answered questionnaire. The study also analyzed data collected by observing customers behaviors in the checkouts and interviewing them after paying for their purchases. During the study, it was easy to keep track of these customers, as grocery is an activity that is recurrent as these customers repeatedly purchase groceries.
3. A brief statement of the evaluation tool (metrics) used
To analyze this data, the researcher used factor analysis by using asymptotically distribution free estimates. For implementation of the ANCOVA (analysis of covariance), the study examines shopping pleasures across different demographic traits influencing other demographic traits variable at the same time. At the end, he offers the exact difference between shopping pleasures among customers demographic segment by using Bonferroni post hoc method.
4. A summary of the conclusion presented
Few customers like to mingle with others as they shop. These consumers think shopping is a private pleasure that has the fun of bargain hunting. Electronic Grocery Stores give such customers the advantage of bargain hunting from the internet. This makes looking for cheaper prices easy for these consumers. In addition, these customers know exactly where to get the groceries they need, and they will need just to visit the premises and pick their order and pay for them (Raijas, 2002).
Demographic is a key determinant to how these customers enjoy shopping. Most of those that shop in these Electronic Grocery Stores who are mostly women find them convenient as they save time. Women who are mostly in well up populace use this method as most have employment (Raijas, 2002). This allows them to order for purchases, and still report to work. In case they get to work, and they forgot to order they could do it online as they just need online access.
This study shows that the percentage that used Electronic Grocery Stores and not the employed suburban family had different reasons. Some were bargain seekers who sought to compare groceries available in stores. This was easy as they would establish easily the best bargain stores and buy the goods later. Involvement of technology in Electronic Grocery Stores led some people to believe they offered the best quality products. In their quest to get the best quality, they realized that Electronic Grocery Stores offer a wide variety of these quality goods. For rural dwellers, they chose this method as they can easily access to goods. Young people did this for the experience and adventure, and since most are computer literate, they have easy access to these shopping services (Raijas, 2002).
However, Electronic Grocery Stores still have their disadvantages. First, machines run them, and they might break down. Among those that contributed to the study, dissatisfaction rate was remarkably high. At least 43% of the sample group that use Electronic Grocery Stores complained of the websites being hard to use to trace groceries. The group that used them to make bargains, 40% found Electronic Grocery Stores expensive than conventional stores. Forty percent had misgivings about the quality of groceries sold online. Others a 38% majority complained they found little information about the groceries they found online. Time delivery was also issues of concern for 6% especially once they considered some groceries are perishable. At times, a 3% of the sample complained they had little or no service at all. Shopping in Electronic Grocery Stores requires knowledge on internet use and many people do not have this knowledge (Raijas, 2002).
5. My evaluation of the work
On evaluation of the researcher’s study, I agree with him that the Electronic are a convenient option to shop with the improved technology. The statistical research he compiled is remarkably convincing, as the figures in the research compilation are actual research data. The data represent an actual number of individuals that were using Electronic Grocery Stores at the time of the research. For easier identification of data, he presented each demographic group, and why they preferred Electronic Grocery Stores. This research can serve as a guide to students who will conduct the same research in the future. Investors interested to invest in Electronic Grocery Stores can also use this work to decide what they need to improve to gain more. In this work, there is proper documentation of the problems and benefits in Electronic Grocery Stores. With improvements in technology, this work shows that Electronic Grocery Stores, with the elimination of all shortcomings are an easier way to shop for groceries.
Reference
Raijas, A. (2002). The consumer benefits and problems in the electronic grocery store. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Service, Volume 9, 107-113.
