The Case of Smith’s Grocery Stores: A Field Research Project
Assignment Overview:

A picture containing text, sign, store Description automatically generatedThis assignment will help students learn about how grocery stores and consumer product lines compete with one other in a retail environment. Through this assignment, students will visit a local grocery store to conduct primary research through observations and analysis.

Format:

Using the guidelines below, teams can decide how to present the information in a manner that is professional, clear, credible, logical and informative. Please be sure to maintain a consistent team “voice” throughout the project submission. Special emphasis will be placed on clarity, professionalism and format, especially the proper labeling, description and analysis of the various brand strategies. Grammatical, format and spelling errors will result in grade penalties. Fonts should be 12-point Arial and text should be single-space, flush left.

Assignment Background

Case Background:

He wants to better understand the strategies, strengths and weaknesses of some existing grocery stores in the area and has asked your team to assist with this assessment by conducting some research and writing a report.

Specifically, he would like each student on a team to visit a local grocery store and then present examples and their related analysis of an assigned product strategy in a consolidated team report that will help him better understand the nature and competitiveness of the local retail grocery scene

Note: Before embarking on the store visits, students will need to research and learn about the retail concepts listed below. We will only spend a few minutes on these in class, so this should be considered to be a self-study exercise.

The Assignment’s Organization

Please organize your information as follows.

Part II: Research Data, Observations and Analysis

Please collect and present the following information underneath each of the topics below.

1. Brand and Product Line Strategies

For each of the six brand and product line strategies shown below:

1. Thoroughly define the strategy written by the student. Cutting and pasting from a secondary source will result in zero credit on this assignment for all team members

2. Find, photograph and clearly present an example of each strategy as noted. Please clearly label the photographs (or lose .10 points for each missing label) with a name and brief description.

3. Explain the photo-example in a manner that is supported by the definition of the strategy. As always, these definitions must be in the words of the student. Cutting and pasting will result in zero credit.

4. Provide your opinion: Are the strategy and example you observed effective? Why or why not?

Please make these explanations clearly enough for a reader who knows nothing about product and brand strategies to understand. See the URLs linked to the terms below in order to find some good definitions. But, students can find their own sources

In any case, remember that you must state these terms and definitions in your own words. No cutting and pasting is allowed. If you use the URLs/sites below, then no APA citations are necessary. Simply paste the same URL along with the analysis. If use other websites to help with your definitions, then you must cite Them