Supermarket 2.0

Project Team: Mary McNamara, Ariana Sani, Meghan Potter, Sandra Villafan

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Abstract:

In this paper, we describe a supermarket system redesign sensitive to social and technological systems. The redesign is manifested as a supermarket concierge and information kiosk.

1. INTRODUCTION

The U.S. grocery store industry has evolved greatly from its early origins and has increased its sophistication in information technology. Contemporary grocery store consumers are bombarded with a cornucopia of overwhelming, sometimes misleading information. Parallel to the information increase, obesity rates in the United States continue to rise. While access to information and technology isn't a problem, creating a technological and social infrastructure for meaningful adoption is. Clearly, although Americans have access to information about their food, they are not always able to interpret the nutrition information available to them or comprehend the relevance of that information.

We have created a prototype for a grocery store redesign consisting of concierge reference and kiosk, to help consumers to understand and use nutrition and health information relevant to the groceries they purchase.

2. CLIENT AND STAKEHOLDERS

The government's interest in health and preventive care is rising. One example of this trend is Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign. Thus, our primary client is the federal government. We believe that our design has the potential to help the government meet its objectives.

In addition, consumers and grocery stores are heavily involved stakeholders. In order to be successful, our design must be willingly adopted by grocery stores and then successfully engaged by consumers.

3. BACKGROUND

Retail grocery constitutes a major U.S. industry, and supermarkets alone have a $500 billion dollar net worth. Grocery stores are using advanced information technology to provide better service at the checkout counter, improve inventory management, as well as for other tasks.1 Improved customer service is a perceived benefit of technology. One of the strongest trends in North America is the use of kiosks, an over $155 billion/year industry.2 One of the most common types are health-related kiosks, such as those that measure blood pressure.

3.1 Literature Review

We conducted a literature review to better understand consumer information-seeking behavior as well as the various objectives of stores, manufacturers, and governing agencies. We examined the following domains: the social and psyche elements influencing consumers, politics, business and technology.

Our literature review showed that consumers opt to use certain new technology. An example of this is consumers' use of online coupons as a matter of convenience. One study showed that consumers like online coupons and that "the characteristics of products and websites that are encountered early in online browsing can significantly influence the level of arousal and pleasure that consumers experience."3 It appears then that while consumers will use technology, they prefer it to be convenient and familiar.

Federal subsidies for products such as corn and sugar heavily influence what manufacturers produce and therefore what stores stock. While pouring billions of dollars into these subsidies with one hand, the federal government's other hand is simultaneously attempting to address increased rates of obesity and counteract the effects of the ubiquitous, inexpensive junk foods that these subsidies make possible. The government's push for health is not only because of rising health care costs: obesity also decreases individuals' ability to enroll in armed forces.4

Farmers benefit from these subsidies because they can safely produce high volumes of subsidized monocrops with the assurance that they will be compensated at certain rates. Manufacturers then process these cheap raw goods into inexpensive foodstuffs which are often nutritionally deficient. Although food products come with FDA-mandated nutritional information summarizing nutritional value, they also have manufacturers' promotional labels. Manufacturers' labels tend to focus on only one aspect of the food and provide an incomplete or misleading assessment.5 For instance, an item full of sugar and fat but with added fiber will be marked "High in Fiber!," implying that it is healthy. It is unclear if consumers' purchases are influenced by FDA nutritional labels, manufacturers' labels, or both.

3.2 Survey

We surveyed grocery store consumers and found that consumers are concerned with health; ethics; price; and religious, nutritional, and allergy restrictions. Objectives included purchasing food that was organic, healthy, animal-free, allergen-free, supporting local agriculture and mom-and-pop stores, and staying within budget. Those who use nutritional information when determining what to purchase scan labels for calories, sodium, fiber, sugar, and the presence of animal or allergy-inducing products, among other things.

The results indicated that most consumers are willing to use some forms of technology during their shopping trip. Many said that they would not use a mobile application in the store, and a few said that they would try it out at home. This seemed to stem from a desire of the majority of respondents to "get in and out" as quickly as possible. About half of respondents would use technology such as self check out devices, if they had easy-to-use interfaces.

Many respondents also said that store branding, whether "green," "healthful," "cheap" or "hip" influenced their decisions about where to shop.

4. SUGGESTIONS

The most-cited shopping frustrations would cause consumers to cease shopping and/or switch to another store. Consumer frustrations include: difficulty getting through the check out quickly, lack of visual prices on shelves or product, difficulty in finding employees for assistance, lack of employee knowledge about products/store, out-of-stock items and difficulty in finding item.6

Based on our survey results and literature review, we propose an integrated system comprised of two modules; one focused on social interaction and one on technology. This system will help consumers make sense of the full array of information they receive in the store, including information regarding nutrition, cost, and environmental data.

The first of these systems is a "roving reference" person, who is a dietician or librarian with a background in health information. This individual will be branded as a "concierge" to minimize the perception of judgment associated with health professionals. They will provide one-on-one customer service, using their expertise to help consumers translate and navigate the cornucopia of information in the store. The concierge will not attempt to influence consumers' behavior in one specific direction, but will rather seek to empower consumers to make better informed purchases, taking into account their individual needs.

The second system will be a kiosk that provides consumers access to a variety of information. The interface would be navigable by consumer "profiles" that are based on specific needs, such as interests in social impacts, environmental impacts, dietary restrictions, or cost-consciousness. It would feature local store activities. It would also dispense coupons and highlight discounts and promotions. As a freestanding, fixed device in the store, the kiosk will allow consumers who do not have mobile app-supported devices to access this information. Either the concierge or the consumer can use this interface to access information about a product or type of product that they want to know more about.

4.1 Implementation

In its pilot phase, we would like to implement this project in a low-income urban environment where residents have little access to healthy foods and statistically poor health outcomes. Participating stores will be subsidized by a federal grant to obtain, install, and operate the systems, paying only a limited percentage of the actual costs. For instance, grocery stores might pay 10% of the professional dietician's salary while the grant contributes 90%. This method of financing assures that both systems function as consumer advocates and not merely as commercial tools. It also ensures that they can be implemented in stores that are unable to pay the up-front costs of implementation. Feedback from this pilot phase will be critical to refining the systems before a mass distribution is undertaken.

5. CONCLUSION

Our suggested redesign is mutually beneficial: the government benefits by empowering consumers to make informed shopping choices leading to better health and reduced obesity. Supermarkets benefit with new reputations for customer care and transparency. While the information the concierge and kiosk provide does not ensure that consumers will eat healthy, it provides opportunities in-store to become more knowledgeable about food and nutrition. Once consumers more fully understand what they are consuming, they are likely to make healthier choices overall.

Footnotes

1. Salkin, J. 1995. New Technology. California Grocer. (May 1995).
2. Angrisani, C. 2003. Self-service kiosks generating $155 billion this year: study. SN Daily News (Sept. 24, 2003), 24-5.
3. Chiou-Wei, S. and Inman, J. J. 2008. Do shoppers like electronic coupons? A panel data analysis. J. Retailing 84, 3 (March, 2008), 297-307. DOI = 10.1016/j.jretai.2008.07.003
4. Mallove, Zach. 2010. School lunches could threaten security. Food Safety News (2010).
5. Berning, Joshua P., Chounard Hayley H., and McCluskey, Jill J. 2008. Consumer preferences for detailed versus summary formats of nutrition information on grocery store shelf labels. Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization 6, 6 (2008)
6. Harmon, A., 2003. Shopping list. SN Daily News (Nov. 10, 2003), p. 24-26.

6. REFERENCES

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[4] Chiou-Wei, S. and Inman, J. J. 2008. Do shoppers like electronic coupons? A panel data analysis. J. Retailing 84, 3 (March, 2008), 297-307. DOI = 10.1016/j.jretai.2008.07.003
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