Safeway

Safeway has found a new and innovative way to shop for groceries. Using an Easy-Order system with a hand held computer has become the latest craze at Safeway. This system lets you shop without ever leaving your home. This system can remember every item that you have ever bought, what you will need, and what you don’t need or like. Safeway is only interested in selling you what you need or can use. The screen has suggestive sells that could be useful to you. These suggestive sells are based on demographic data Safeway has collected. Safeway also has a reward for loyalty. The more you buy from them the more you save. They have discount based loyalty cards that you use with every order to save money. These new hand helds are helping Safeway by keeping traffic in their stores down without losing customers (Rosier 49). It also is very convenient for many people. The issue that people have debated is whether or not people will buy on impulse, and is that important. Some believe that impulse buying is very important in sales. They say that impulse buying adds up and earns the company more money. I believe that they are wrong. Many people that go to the store end up buying too much, this is very frustrating. They have found that people tend to spend less by not impulse buying with this new system. I think that this is a good thing for Safeway, when people see how much they will save with this system. The only problem that they face is the PDA’s that has a built in scanner cost $400.00, which is a lot, and Safeway gives these away. This would be a good idea, but some people end up using them for their personal electronic organizers, and never make an order with them. This costs Safeway too much money. This is a good way to do business, although it does have problems. Once these are worked out Safeway will have a great new innovation. I believe that Safeway is using a innovated strategy of IT, because not only has it created a new produced to include IT component but it has created a new market with the help of IT components. I believe that the use of the Easy-Order system is a good strategy for supermarkets, because it makes shopping easy for people, especially those who hate the hassle of shopping a supermarket. I think that another way to use the Internet in strategic strategies is to let people order food using their own personal computer. The PDA is a great idea, but they should also let people order from their own computer. This would be another way to use information technologies, via the Internet. To learn more about the program you can visit http://www.safeway.com/.

Safeway: Our Company. 2002. 8 Feb. 2002. <http://www.safeway.com/ourcompany.asp>

O’Brien, Jeanne Rosier. Introduction to Information System. Page 49. New York City,

New York, 2002