UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY MALAYSIA

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

ASSIGNMENT
MRB2113 ICT STRATEGY
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Stop & Shops Scan It! App Case Study

NO

NAME

MATRIC NO

SHENBAGAM RAMAN

MR131131

Stop & Shop

Page 1

Abstract
The paper discusses the key issues in Stop & Scan It! App case study. Stop & Shop
introduced Scan It!, a portable electronic device for customers shopping in their stores. The
device allowed customers to scan and bag products, expediting check-out times at the end of
their shopping trip. Additionally, the paper highlights the company profile of Stop & Shop and
also the mission of Stop & Shop. In addition, the paper also reviews the SWOT analysis and
Porters five forces of Stop and Shop. Lastly, the discussion focused on case study questions.

Stop & Shop

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TABLE OF CONTENT
No.

Content

Pages

Introduction

Case study issues

Company profile

Mission of Stop & Shop

SWOT Analysis

Porters five forces

Case Study Questions

Conclusion

10

TABLES
Table 1 SWOT Analysis

Stop & Shop

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1.0

Introduction

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company is one of the region's largest
supermarket chains, with more than 400 outlets in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. The report highlights the issues of
Stop & Shop. In addition, the report discusses the company profile of Stop & Shop and
also its mission. Apart from this, this report emphasizes on SWOT analysis and Porters
five forces of Stop & Shop. In conclusion, the case study questions will be discussed.

Stop & Shop

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2.0

Stop & Shops Scan It! App Case Study Issues

Stop & Shops Scan It! App case study is about customer loyalty in grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping was a highly commoditized industry with over 85000 stores in the United
States. With little variation in available item selection and less money being spent on groceries
in the down economy, competition for customer loyalty was at an all-time high in 2012. Stop &
Shop uses business analytics to help process buying habits of its customers and tried to get a
better grasp on the hard-to-understand concept of customer loyalty in grocery shopping.
Another main issue of the case study is Scan It!. Stop & Shop uses Scan It!, a portable electronic
device for customers shopping in their stores. Customers became increasingly concerned about
saving money while shopping is also an issue discussed in the case study. Stop & Shop built in
budgeting software to allow customers to track their spending more effectively.
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Company profile of Stop & Shop

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company is one of the region's largest supermarket

chains, with more than 400 outlets in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. The company's Super Stop & Shop superstores offer a
wider variety of food and non-food items than its standard supermarkets, including a large
number of convenience and specialty departments, such as gas stations, full-service
pharmacies, office supplies, portrait studios, and photo shops. Stop & Shop's owner, Ahold USA,
runs two other East Coast supermarket chains under the Giant banners. Ahold USA is owned by
Dutch food giant Royal Ahold.
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Mission of Stop & Shop

At Stop & Shop, we believe offering safe, wholesome, high quality foods in clean,

modern and attractive stores is the foundation for consumer confidence. Stop & Shop actively
promotes safe food handling by continually reinforcing established policies and procedures
through associate training and education programs throughout our organization. In addition,
we are committed to providing useful information to consumers interested in food safety and
product handling. (Source: Stop & Shop Website)
Stop & Shop

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SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Weaknesses

* Strong brand recognition

* High fixed cost investment per store

* Strong real estate in valuable markets

(requires very high ROI)

* High store productivity level

* Poor performance in peripheral markets

* Strong management skills

* Store concept hard to replicate given size

* Innovator

and targeted shoppers/consumers

* Too reliant on manufacturers monies

Opportunities

Threats

* Smaller box format to attract time

* Growing presence of low-price competitors

constrained shoppers

(i.e. Hannaford, Wal-Mart)

* Strengthen operational synergies through

regional east-coast presence

* Traditional and new channel competition

* Must achieve organizational stability

* Divestment of Tops and US Foodservice will

free up capital to be re-invested in the US
* Moving towards hybrid pricing strategy
Table 1: SWOT Analysis
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Porters five forces

Stop & Shop

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Threat of new entry

The threat of new entrants into the industry is low. Due to the high-cost, low-margin
nature of the grocery industry, the competitive landscape is stilted towards large corporations
that can operate efficiently while selling in volume
Supplier Power
The bargaining power of Suppliers is relatively low. There is a high competition between
suppliers which means that their ability to raise prices or reduce quantity is very low. Suppliers
include both domestic and international manufacturers and because many retail products are
standardized, retailers have low switching costs which make the supplier power low. Larger
retailers have power over their suppliers because they can threaten suppliers to change to
different suppliers which would significantly hurt the suppliers because of their great market
share. Furthermore larger retailers can vertically integrate with suppliers they are having
trouble cooperating with.
Bargaining Power of Buyers
The bargaining power of buyers is relatively low. This is because since there are so many
customers, no one customer will have bargaining leverage. Therefore bargaining must be done
in massive groups which are hard to organize. If consumers choose not to shop at a retail outlet
they most likely miss out on value or price as well as convenience of shopping retail.
Competitive Rivalry
Competitive rivalry is medium to high. There are numerous competitors as well as many
E-retailers that are entering the market rapidly. Several Rivals are highly dedicated to being
industry leaders. Furthermore there are diverse approaches and differing goals between
competitors. These are all factors that lead to a high force but because exit barriers are low.
Therefore weak firms are more likely to leave the market which in turn, increases profits for
remaining firms which weakens the power of competitive rivalry.

Stop & Shop

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Threat of Substitutes
Threat of substitutes is low because there are not many substitutes that offer low prices
and convenience to consumers. The goals of retailers it provide a wide variety of products at
one location and in many cases create a one stop shopping location which leaves.
7.0

Case Study Questions

Benefit of the Scan It! data to Stop & Shop. What are some of the questions they can now
answer about their customers?
Stop & Shop introduced Scan It!, a portable electronic device for customers shopping in
their stores. The device allowed customers to scan and bag products, expediting check-out
times at the end of their shopping trip. Additionally, the device offered deals based on the
location of the scanner in the store. The most beneficial aspect of the Scan It!, however, came
with the powerful analytics software built into the device by Modiv Media, in which Stop &
Shop owns a minority interest. The software kept track of each customers purchasing habits
both past and present, to individualize coupons in real time for the customer.
Customer loyalty grew, which allowed Stop & Shop to secure a greater customer base
than area demographics would predict. Additionally, each shoppers basket size increased as
individually tailored coupons enticed customers to buy more. Lastly, Stop & Shop saw its
customer base grow, as word-of-mouth marketing brought in more customers to try the stateof-the-art device.
How would you assess the level of maturity of Stop & Shops use of analytics? What might they
do differently with the data to gain more value?
Stop &Shop bundled an app that not only rewarded customers who shipped at their
stores by helping them save money, but it provides additional functionality to the customers
and tracked information on sales, which Stop & Shop loaded into its data warehouse and used
to understand its customers, Analytics then helped Stop & Shop put the right items on its
shelves to maximize sales and create customer loyalty.
Stop & Shop

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Visible analysis Stop & Shop app for customer data has reached a very advanced stage, it
can quickly collect data for a long time tracking data, record data, analyze data, and timely
feedback data, the key is, the accuracy of the data analysis is correct. A first of its kind grocery
app that allows customers to use their personal mobile device to scan, tally, and bag their
groceries while they shop. The software kept track of each customers purchasing habits both
past and present, to individualize coupons in real time for the customers.
What concerns might shoppers have about their privacy? How would you advise Stop & Shop
management to respond to these concerns?
Many consumers do not want to let people know what they have bought, and in the
strict sense, consumer buying habits originally privacy category, for example, some consumers
bought drugs, but they are reluctant to let others know their ill history, or some consumers
have liked what items, but they do not want others to know their hobbies, so the analysis of
consumer buying habits, will cause some degree of consumer privacy from prying eyes.
Can strengthen supervision of Stop & Shop software, this software only stay at the level
of technical analysis, human intervention and cannot be analyzed, as software is completely
confidential technical staff thought only used to send information to the customer himself, no
one else can handle derived data.

Stop & Shop

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Conclusion
Stop & Shop is a chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From

its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to become the largest supermarket
operator in southern New England, with nearly 400 stores chain-wide. The report highlights the
issues of Stop & Shop. In addition, the report discusses the company profile of Stop & Shop and
also its mission. Apart from this, this report emphasizes on SWOT analysis and Porters five
forces of Stop & Shop. In conclusion, the report discusses the case study questions of Stop &
Shop.

Stop & Shop

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