UNDERSTANDING THE SUPERMARKET THEORY.
"SUMMIT ASIAN MARKET".
"SUMMIT ASIAN MARKET".
By definition, a supermarket is a 'self serve grocery store'. This in
essence, refers to any store where food is sold and the responsibility of
moving around and making decisions as to what to purchase, lies with the
consumer. According to Jack Hitt, these decisions are predetermined by
retailers. " The mission of the super market, like everything in our
culture, is supposedly dedicated to one end: choice. But it is not your
choice, rather it is the retailer's" (Hitt,1996).
The purpose of this paper is to further understand the supermarket theory.
In jack Hitt's words, "perhaps you thought as I did, there was only one
postulate of supermarket theory: put milk on one end, and bread in the
other to force the shopper to trek the length of the entire store.
Friends that was eons ago. For you to comprehend supermarket theory, first
know how well supermarket theory comprehends you" (Hitt, 1996).
For this paper, I decided to visit the 'Summit Asian Market' located in
the old town area of Gaithersburg. As the name denotes, it caters mainly
to the needs of Asians in that neighborhood.
Supermarkets may be considered 'Temples of consumption'- because,
although there are rare exceptions, people go there to buy. To this end,
the supermarket or grocery store is constructed purposefully and carefully
to promote consumers purchases, while also promoting a "gentle"
competition among classes"(Hitt, 1996)
AS a consumer, I might think that it is not necessary to carefully
plan the construction and in fact, placement of items in or around a
store. However, while going through I began to realize that a lot of
thinking, organizing, experimenting, and understanding have gone into
play in the final construction of this particular store.
Before you enter, the first thing you notice are the posters in the
windows that tell the consumers what items are on 'sale', and their
corresponding prices. This is supposed to encourage a potential consumer to
come in and look for these sale items. On entering, I observe that some
parts of the store were still under construction. But right in ones line
of vision, I saw nice arrangement of fresh farm produce that appeals to
people. While going through the store, I began to comprehend and
appreciate the styles and manner of arrangement especially with the
placement of items and the reasons behind such placement. For instance,
different items are placed in different parts of the store, and in fact,
on different layers of the shelves. Cookies, Candy, and Cereal were placed
in the same aisle and on the lowest level of the shelf. Most probably, to
make it easily accessible to little kids. Also, dried, ground and
packaged foods were placed on the top-most layer of the shelf in another
aisle. In order to keep children away from them and to stop them from
hurting themselves.
Moving further into the store, a consumer will notice that there is
the meat section, on one side, and the fish section a little bit further
off, although one can see a man in an apron cleaning out and arranging
them, it is quite obvious that he is not really doing the hard work, and
his being there, is all for the benefit of the consumers. According to
Hitt,
" A little rubber necking reveals that the rugged butchery is going on the
back far from the consumers eyes" (Hitt 1996).
While going through, I decided to find out if they had restrooms, so
I asked and was shown to the place. Contrary to my expectation based on
what had been heard about other public toilets, I noticed that this one is
extremely well taken care of, and in fact, had received an approval
stamp form the Montgomery county health division. At the checkout
line, I found myself looking at what other people had in their carts and
trying to make assumption about there lifestyles based on these. However,
we need to realize that " food is too diffuse to be easily read. The
person ahead in a supermarket checkout line, buying a half- dozen eggs and
a stick of butter, may be single, elderly or poor."(Camp, 1997). Only two
checkout lanes were opened, since there are very few people in the store.
Most of them women, who have come to buy the weeks grocery for the whole
family. Employees are all Asians, most of them were men. Perhaps because
men are the sole bread winners in their families. All the employees are
very polite, and there is one that stands close to the exit, smiling at
everyone, asking them to come again. At the register, people can use any of
the different modes of payment, however, one is not allowed to use a
credit card for a purchase of $10 or less.
There is an underlying assumption about the expected consumers. For
instance, it is assumed that whoever comes in to the store is of Asian
descent, or can at least read and understand the language in which most of
the labels are written. Also, there is a form of expressive culture going
on here, the owners and organizers have gone the extra length of making the
things that are important to a particular group of people available to
them. Even though, they are in a foreign land, they are able to go to a
grocery store and purchase the the things that are unique to their
culture. Another important point ot note is that, all the people there
were not from the same Asian country, but they all had one thing in
common, the culture of the particular kinds of foods, meats and vegetables
that were available. This represents unity in a foreign country.
It is clear that in order to be able to understand why some items are
sold in a particular store, or why some stores are open for 24hours, or in
fact, the reason for placing a particular item right next to another, one
need to first of all understand the reasons why those things are done te
way they are. In most cases, because the organizers have taken the
potential market into consideration.