Shopping At The Supermarket Essay

The supermarket industry is fiercely competitive and is currently dominated by the “Big Three” companies: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and ASDA. To ensure that they remain in these three, it is important that each company gains and maintains its own competitive advantage. So, in what ways does ASDA do this? The three main factors that help ASDA maintain a competitive advantage are: * Reputation * Advertising * Market Research ASDA is well known for being the friendliest and cheapest supermarket.

Customers can expect the legendary ‘service with personality’ from all employees and the products they want at the lowest prices.

This reputation is invaluable as it is the main reason why people shop and continue to shop at ASDA. To maintain this competitive advantage, ASDA makes sure that their staff are as helpful as possible and regularly check to ensure that they are. All members of staff also wear “Happy To Help” badges to make them more approachable. ASDA try to emphasize this as much as possible, even one of their popular slogans is, “Always Happy To Help”.

To ensure that they also have the lowest prices possible, ASDA hires employees to ‘price check’ at rival supermarket chains. This has proven to be effective as they have been awarded the title of “Britain’s Best Value Supermarket” for the fifth consecutive year. Since 1999, ASDA has cut its prices by around i? 0. 5 billion. Customers obviously recognize and value this as they continue to shop at ASDA. ASDA utilizes advertising as an extremely powerful tool to attract customers.

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ASDA air more television commercials during the daytime than any of their main competitors.

They use this to make existing and potential customers aware of their latest deals and of course, that they are, “always happy to help”. These advertisements not only interest customers with their products but also make familiarise them with the name and associate ASDA with friendliness and great value. This association will make people who tend to shop at different supermarkets want to shop at ASDA if they feel that they offer a better service and better value. Market research is also vitally important to maintain their competitive advantage.

Market Research ensures that ASDA provides everything that their customer needs and also finds new products that customers would be interested in. To make this competitive advantage as long-lasting as possible, ASDA frequently researches customer care, consumer issues, and product development, as well as ongoing advertising campaigns and price comparisons. This helps ASDA keep ‘ahead of the game’ and offer goods and services that their main competitors do not yet offer. Customers are also welcome to submit their feedback to ASDA through questionnaires available on their exit.

These questionnaires help ASDA to find out the needs of their customers by interacting directly with them. Although these are the three main factors that help ASDA maintain a competitive advantage, others are just as important. These include the use of the Internet and innovation. ASDA’s Internet shopping system has proven to be extremely popular. It is also a very cost-efficient way of advertising, which ASDA use to their full advantage. Internet shopping is becoming increasingly popular as it allows customers to shop from their own homes instead of having to make the journey to the supermarket.

Many customers prefer this because it allows them more free time, something that many people do not have much of in a busy, modern life. ASDA recognized this very early on and was one of the first UK Supermarkets to try out this system. Advertising on the Internet allows ASDA to target potential customers by advertising on a website that potential customers would be interested in. ASDA hires a group of people to constantly think up new ideas to stay ‘ahead of the game’ and encourage staff and customers alike to make any suggestion that they want.

ASDA’s constant innovation has allowed customers a wider range of products available in ASDA. New specialized counters are constantly being added to help customers find what they want more easily and to ensure that the food is of a high standard. These include specialization in pizza, chicken, and fresh salads and fruits. Specialization allows ASDA to assign employees to make a certain type of food. By just concentrating on this food, this ensures that it is of high quality and the employee will be as helpful as possible because they will know a lot about it. Conclusion

ASDA relies on competitive advantage to keep their existing customers and to encourage other people to shop there. ASDA has many ways to ensure that they maintain this advantage. These include market research, advertising, the Internet, innovation, and most importantly, their reputation. All of these factors guarantee that ASDA is more attractive to shoppers than their main competitors and makes people want to shop there. ASDA take competitive advantage very seriously and this has caused them to win numerous awards including, “Britain’s best value supermarket” and also become the most popular supermarket in the UK.