Retailing 8th Edition by Patrick Dunne,Robert Lusch, James Carver

Exercise 18

Ninety years ago, Paul Jesup, your great grandfather who emigrated from Italy, opened his first grocery store in a small mid-western farming community. That store at 10,000 square feet, was thought of as large, especially compared to the typical corner grocery store of the 1920s. Today, you are president of a chain of 15 supermarkets, with annual sales of $148 million and net profits of $3.1 million that traces its roots back to Paul Jessup. The chain is spread across six mid-western communities between 35,000 and 242,000 in population. One of the communities, with the attraction of a high-quality university, has become the home of many retirees. Recently, Sally Barnes, one of these retirees, began blogging about how both of the supermarkets in the community (the one you operate and one of a national chain) are not well designed for retirees. Within a few weeks she had over 100 community members sharing ideas about how the supermarkets were insensitive to senior citizens.
You had one of your staff summarize the blogging on this topic and also look at other blogs in other communities on this topic. Below is a summary of the major complaints:
1. Some parts of the store are not well lighted, which makes it difficult for those with failing eyesight to see the merchandise as it should be viewed.
2. Too many of the items that senior citizens purchase often, such as adult diapers, over-the-counter medications for pain, and laxatives, are difficult to find due to poor signing. Also, often these items are on lower shelves that are difficult to reach by seniors.
3. Music being played in the store is oriented too much toward young people and not relaxing; some of it they find irritating.
4. The pre-cut and packaged meats are too large in terms of portions.
5. The shopping carts are considerably over-sized for a single or couple only purchasing a few items making them too large to navigate easily, and too deep to easily reach items at the cart bottom.
6. Seniors like to visit the supermarket several times a week in order to get out of their apartment or house, and would like an area of the store where they could gather for conversation and relaxing.
In addition to the preceding list that was common across many of the blogs that were examined, there was one concern that was unique to your supermarket. About three years ago, you decided to slowly replace the senior citizen greeters at the entrance of the store who were doing a good job and appreciated the part-time work, even if it was a minimum wage. As greeters quit, you replaced them with teenagers between ages 16 and 19. In part, you took this action because there was rising unemployment among teenagers, and you felt this was a positive act of community responsibility. Now, the seniors in your community were suggesting that your supermarket go back to only using senior citizen greeters.
As you looked over the concerns of seniors, you noticed many good suggestions, but perhaps some that might be merely cost centers and not revenue generators. You were especially torn by the suggestion of not employing teenagers as greeters. Nonetheless, you decided something had to be done to be responsive to the concerns of seniors. Also, you thought it could be a competitive advantage if your supermarket acted proactively before your competitor. Then, the phone rang and it was Sally Barnes and she asked to meet with you as soon as possible. When you asked the purpose she was rather vague.
Even though you're the president, you are in charge of marketing and communications for your retail chain. You want to be prepared for your meeting with Sally Barnes. Provide an outline detailing of how you want the meeting to go, what topics you want to address right now, and what other steps you might take in the coming months.