Understanding Consumer Behavior at Walmart: Observations and

MKTG 312 Progress Report March 27, 2019 Workload Since this project has required little from an organizational standpoint so far, we have all taken a fair share of leadership to create documents, organize field meetings, and meet together. From the first deliverable, each member of our team was assigned one section to do research on
1 and complete. We have gone to Walmart twice before this progress report. The first time took place on Thursday, February 21st between 1 and 4pm. The second visit took place on a variety of times between Thursday, March 14 between 1-4pm, and Saturday, March 16 between 1-4pm. After our visit to Walmart, we met as group in the library to go over our field notes and begin to draw some rudimentary conclusions based on our observations. In Nick's observations, he perceived that regardless of age most individuals took their time to analyze the produce to find the best available. This may be because it is a non-rushed time of the day around 3pm and because it was a fairly nice day out. Additionally, he found that for buyers of meat there was often a debate on which meat to get which often ended in red meat over white meat. In Asad's observations, he noticed that the produce aisle compared to other aisles around the store was much smaller, as well as much of the observed population during the time period (1:30 PM-2:30 PM) was older minorities. It was not crowded due to the fact it was lunch time during a weekday, so that most people are eating lunch or working. Furthermore, most of the observed subjects seemed to picky when selecting their produce, making sure by using their sense of touch if the produce is ripe. In David's observations, he initially noticed how busy it was on the days that he visited, giving him more opportunities to see consumer behaviors. Given that times and dates, March 11 and 7 around 1 pm to 2 pm, it was surprising to see how many customers were there. Of the observed consumers, most decided on produce based on the looks and the price. By using their senses, these consumers would examine produce and determine if the quality of the produce is worth the price. David also noticed how the layout of the produce section and the produce itself could be used to influence different people.In Nick E.'s observations he noticed that there were far more adult consumers than young adults and children browsing items in the produce section. I took notice to the fact that the weekends were significantly busier than weekdays. Nick E. observed many different consumers and it appeared that most if not all were making their
2 purchasing decisions based on pricing. He noticed that Walmart had special deals and sales on produce, most likely in attempt to sway consumers to purchase. In Daeyoung's observation, he found that most consumers are using a container such as a basket or shopping cart. Using a cart or basket depends on the characteristics of the product in the grocery store. Also, some of the consumers visit Walmart as a group, and every group member inspects the product together. It absolutely reflects the consumer's behavior to share information and participate to decision making when they buy a product for their group. Plans for Completing The Assignment The remaining workload will be divided much the same way we have gone through the process so far. Leadership will be divided between everyone to take initiative to create documents and organize meetings, while the sections of the final report will be divided evenly. The group will use the designated group chat create to communicate any problems or opinions that may arise to the group. After submitting the progress report, we plan on meeting two more times in subsequent weeks on Thursdays (March 21st and March 28th). Following these visits, we will have a meeting over the weekend (March 29-31) to organize, structure, and complete our final report. Thick Description As a group we have identified approximately 13 major themes from our observations of the produce section of Walmart. The produce section had a wide variety of customers ranging in both age and race. The themes that were noticed through our observations were time, location of the produce, interaction of customers of produce and browsing habits. Variations in Customer Interactions With Time
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