An Evaluation of the Adaptability and Effectiveness of Metro Online Grocery Shop amidst COVID-19 Pandemic
Letter of Transmittal
The manager,
Metro Grocery Store
53 Ontario Street
Toronto, Ontario
M1M 1M1
Dear Mr. Ryan:
Metro Evaluation Team members are pleased to submit our final report documenting the Metro online grocery shop’s assessment and evaluation amidst the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is important to remember that Metro, like any other business entity, has been adversely affected by the pandemic. The launch of an online shop is merely one way to ensure that the grocery store remains in operation during these difficult times. It is the store’s responsibility to ensure that its clients get the required services irrespective of the social distance regulations.
Metro Grocery Store has a significant role as a first-line grocery provider for a large and varied downtown population. This role requires a dedicated and professional staff that must dispense its services in difficult and stressful situations. Our experience is that your staffs provide very high-quality care with unfailing compassion and professionalism.
We sincerely appreciate that every member of the store gave their unwavering support towards this report’s success despite working within a limited timeline. The team members rarely registered any difficulties except in accessing the clients for interviews. We wish that the management would set aside some time to allow the members to present the report.
Yours sincerely,
Siyu Yang
Executive Summary
Metro Grocery Store is a well-known grocery shop located in Ontario in Toronto. The shop has been functional for several years since its first launch in 1998. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the World Health Organization guidelines, the store adopted an online shop to facilitate its activities, which has been in operation for three months. This report is to evaluate the adaptability and effectiveness of the online shop amidst the current health crisis. The twelve-member evaluation team chosen to conduct the exercise gathered information from clients and staff through interviews and questionnaires. They equally reviewed daily sales reports and customer views from various social platforms. After conducting an analysis of the results, the team revealed that more people were yet to start choosing the new service; there was a huge demand for online grocery shopping; many people were complaining about its ineffectiveness due to the delay and delivery of stale products; Online grocery shopping took a long time and charged more fees than in-store shopping; items required more investment on storage and delivery workforce, which included special warehouses, delivery containers, and specialized delivery system. Based on the given findings, the team concluded that the online grocery shopping industry was rapidly expanding, both in Canada and across the world; consumers adopting online grocery shopping might add pressure to markets to expand their capabilities, hire new staff and use new technology; Metro had to increase its capacity and upgrade the delivery system to fulfill the demands of its clients; Metro had to conduct Extensive marketing of its new business platform to attract more customers and have a competitive advantage over its rivals. Therefore, the team recommended that Metro conduct Staff training to promote efficiency and expertise, corporate with third-party Companies to help serve its expanding customer base, and offer flexible delivery options such as the self-pickup delivery model and the direct delivery model.
The Introduction
Metro is the third largest and well-known grocery store in Canada. The store, which deals in vegetables, fruits, meat, dairies, and other non-food products, had been in smooth operation until the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Its lapse in activities due to the health restrictions imposed by the World Health Organization has given its clients the hardest time any moment they want to go shopping. The social distancing requirements alongside the fear and anxiety associated with the disease made people stay off any areas that were designated as hotspots. Like many other supermarkets, which were adapting to newer strategies such as offering online grocery shopping to fulfill more customer needs, Metro launched its app for its clients to do online grocery shopping while being cautious about their health. Since the situation is unpredictable, and stores have very limited time to respond to this new trend, many stores are having trouble keeping up with the crisis. This report, therefore, could help Metro to provide better service to fulfill customer needs. The following areas would be the main focus of the report: the comparison between online grocery shopping and in-store shopping in terms of category selection time, cashing time, and extra fees; the challenges online grocery shopping is facing including inefficient delivery, the freshness of food, and irregular customer buying habits.
Background
Online shopping has been in existence for centuries, even though most businesses have rarely used it. With technology and the Internet connecting every village across the globe, various corporate entities are doing whatever they can to supplement their in-store businesses with online markets. It seems that managers and marketing officers for various companies have begun to realize that online marketing could be the only avenue to boost their competitive advantage over their rivals. It is significant to note that online shopping has a wider customer base, given that most individuals have smartphones and can access the Internet. Ideally, the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has even complicated the situation for most businesses that had not yet embraced online shopping, either halting their operations or making them more creative to survive the turmoil. Metro Grocery Store is perhaps one of the severely affected businesses affected by the pandemic and needed proper measures to mitigate the adverse effects. With social distancing regulations, it meant that the store could not conduct its normal selling activities to avoid putting the health of its clients at risk. To resuscitate itself and ensure that it continued to serve its customers, the management decided to adopt online shopping as the most appropriate strategy. Even though this decision could be termed the best, it could also be associated with various challenges. For instance, adopting an online shop with little prior preparation could be associated with such problems as delayed deliveries, increased product fees, and delivery of stale items. Therefore, any business adopting online shopping like Metro must put in place proper measures and interventions that would ensure and promote the highest level of customer service and satisfaction.
The Objectives of the Report
- To select one Metro store and examine the adaptability and effectiveness of its online grocery shopping.
- To determine whether online grocery shopping is adaptable or not.
- To investigate and make recommendations about the most suitable ways of online grocery shopping for Metro.
Methodology
The information for this report was collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources included interviews, questionnaires, daily sales reports, and customer feedback and views. Secondary sources included peer-reviewed articles, news, and data interpretation. The evaluation team interviewed 10 Metro staff members and sent 20 questionnaires to clients. The basic questions used in interviews and questionnaires were whether the online shop was effective and adaptable to the current circumstances. In other words, the team sought to know whether customers could order and receive their products on time and in good condition. The given data collection tools also sought to know if every client was satisfied with every service offered through the online shop. The clients were to report on any challenges posed by the app in their attempt to make orders. They were also to give their feedback on the usability of the app and its interactivity. In addition to interviews and questionnaires, the team also reviewed the daily sales report to establish a variation between the online shop and the in-store shop. The members analyzed peer-reviewed articles and customer opinions and views from various social media platforms to gather extra details and information.