Conclusion

Today, Shop-Rite is the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States. Shop-Rite Supermarkets is a retailers' cooperative (co-op) chain of supermarkets in the Northeastern United States, in the states of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Based in Elizabeth, New Jersey Shop-Rite consists of 46 individually owned and operated affiliates with 217 stores, all under its corporate and distribution arm, Wakefern Food Corporation.

Throughout the blog we focused on Shop-Rite's strategies. Their main strategy focused on overall cost leadership. Shop-Rite applied this by offering the same or better quality product or service at a price that is less than what any of the competition is able to do.Since Shop-Rite uses an overall cost leadership, IT can be an effective tool. IT can tighten supply chain systems, help you capture and assimilate customer information to better understand buying patterns in an effort to better predict product inventory and shelf placement. The Price Club card comes in handy when trying to figure this out and also whenever a product is rung up and sold; it shows in the inventory when they are purchased and what products interest customers. Shop-Rite has a low threat of substitute products because many of their products have substitute items.

Shop-Rite also uses entry barriers which help make it hard for companies to enter the market. They use this in their technological advantage by purchasing cheaper and in bulk than its competitors so they could sell at a low cost. By doing so, this process takes a lot of time, research and money to establish and build relationship with their suppliers. Shop-Rite uses the customer relationship management (CRM) system as one of their major business initiatives. This helps gather information about customers to gain insights into their needs, wants, and behaviors in order to serve them better. Customers interact with companies in many ways, and each interaction should be easy, enjoyable, and error free.

Studying and researching Shop-Rite has helped us learn and understand key MIS terms such as marketing mix, hardware, software, and databases and data warehouses.The blog emphasized the use of online analytical processing, data mining techniques and software including SAS. In addition we looked at the hardware chosen by Shop-Rite which included Dell brand computers, some software identified included the Microsoft XP operating system and the Network chosen was the AT&T Wide Access Network. Shop-Rite distinguishes itself very well from its competition by emphasizing low prices and good customer service, “One place. Your place, Shop-Rite.”