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Introduction
Sri Lankan Supermarket
Sri Lankas supermarket trade is anticipated to see an unprecedented growth within the next few
years, backed by increasing per capita income, an increase in the work force and the changing
consumption patterns, technological improvement and etc. As a part of this Sri Lankan
supermarket industry were challenging, both now and in the future. The supermarket industry in
Sri Lanka is set for explosive growth, given the western lifestyles of Sri Lankans, where
convenience is a key benefit sought. The Supermarkets are also at an advantage, as they have a
higher bargaining power over suppliers and are in a better position to offer products at competitive
prices due to economies of scale.
Supermarket chains in Sri Lanka would do well to invest in strategic marketing, as a source of
sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic thinking is important rather than the typical shortterm quick fix. Brand building is essential and must be treated as important.
Sri Lanka had 516 supermarkets being operated in the country which can be categorized as
supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores. According to this Cargills operates 177
supermarkets and the state owned Sathosa which offers a product at a promoted rate operates a
convenience store network of 250 stores. Keells has 48 supermarkets being converted to a hyper
market while Arpico operates 13 hyper markets and LAUGFS supermarkets. According to it
follows Sri Lankan supermarket.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Cargills
Sathosa
Keells
LAUGFS
Arpico and etc.
Cargills Supermarket
Cargills Food City has tied up with the leading e-commerce solutions provider in Sri Lanka,
Kapruka to provide online shopping facility to customers to deliver groceries to anywhere in Sri
Lanka at the store price! Now Kapruka customers from Sri Lanka or from around the world can
get Cargills Food City groceries delivered home at a click of a button. All items are priced at
the same price as in the local store making the shopping experience a truly rewarding one.
Cargills says customers have been demanding for an online shopping solution for a long time.
Sathosa Supermarket
The Sathosa chain is also set for growth in the future, with the new management in place. Hence,
what we are witnessing is a dramatic growth in the modern trade, which is taking Centre stage
over the traditional trade. Sathosa is one of Sri Lankan traditional supermarket but now days they
also move to use to technological driver for sales counters. Because technological improvement
trend is effects mostly change costumers preferences.
Keells Supermarket
Keells Super has been always ahead of the technology curve in the retail industry in Sri Lanka and
claims a long list of technological firsts. For instance in 1996 Keells Super was the first to use
Barcodes in Sri Lanka, the first to use business intranets in 2001 and launched e-commerce
enabled Internet shopping in 2002 for the first time.
LAUGFS Supermarket
The SunUp Super has been tagged as the "Super that never sleeps". Justifiably living up to its title,
SunUp was the first to introduce to Sri Lanka the 24 hour retail concept. This was not the only first
for SunUP , it is also the first convenience store to jointly operate with a fuel retail outlet and the
first to introduce a 24 hour pharmacy. All these innovations have taken SunUP super to a step
ahead of the rest. Operating the supermarket chain has a proud status for the most diverse and the
largest product range in terms of SKU's (Stock Keeping Units), housing up to 25,000 per store.
Our main concern is, as it should be, our customer. We target not only the individual retail
customer but also bulk sales as in general trade. With 10 outlets and over 25,000 regular customers
our plans are ambitious.
Arpico Supermarket
Richrd Pieris and Co.PLC is one of the largest and successful diversified business conglomerates
based in Sri Lanka. Being one of the oldest companies with a80 year old history, it is also is one
of the largest employment provider in the private sector in the country. That company is going to
be product diversification, According to that this company is moving to start Arpico Supermarket.
Literature Review
Every day, millions of customers wait in lines, from driving to work to checking out at a retail
store. True reality about waiting lines is unavoidable. Given the dynamism of business and
competition today, a waiting customer is potentially a lost customer. Therefore the main objective
of our report is to give a solution about how to reduce and eliminate the time taken in waiting lines
and billing at point of sales.
customer base of larger supermarkets and finally it runs towards to collapse of competitive
advantage of particular supermarkets.
Sales Reduction
This will be final outcome of effects of ineffective queue management systems of supermarket
sector. Due to customers move to competitors places, particular supermarkets sales will be
reduced. Finally this will reach to minimizing of profit of such supermarkets.
A customer will not consider returning to a supermarket with unmanaged queues and unpleasant
experience. The supermarkets must integrate their existing customer Point of sales longer queues
with a proper queue management system.
Available Solutions for Long Queue in the Super Markets in Sri Lanka
Increasing Number of Branches.
This also a good solution to reduce the traffic of the super market once there are more branches
the customers will be diverted all the branches
Increasing Number of Billing Counters/ Cashiers
Increasing number of billing counter is the best solution to avoid the long waiting queue in super
markets. Specially this can be arrange in the seasonal time and peak time of the day
Promotion of E Commerce Sector and Home Delivery Service
We can see all major super market are having website and can be place order online and super
market can be arrange to make ready to pay for and pick up the order or and the home delivery
Issuing Token send the Customer to the Longue till Recall for Payment
Once a customer is ready to check out, she wheels her cart into an area where she gets a number,
and is directed to a lounge. Staff members scan and generate invoices and once ready, the
numbers are called out into the lounge area so that the customer can pay.
Proposed Solution
Introducing a Smart Cart and smart card System
Customer long waiting time in supermarket queues are one of a huge problem in the supermarket
industry. Many system analysts are trying to find new solutions to overcome this problem. Higher
waiting time in queues are eventually lead to customer dissatisfaction and loss of customer base.
The proposed solution is contained the ability of minimizing the waiting time of queues in
supermarkets and provide a better service to the customers. As a solution to this issue, a smart
trolley with a barcode system for self-billing and a smart card for self-payment system are being
introduced. The smart trolley is introduced to the supermarkets with the intension of promoting
self-billing system to Sri Lanka. Not only that, it will reduce the waiting time in queues where
satisfied customer will be increased. The customers themselves can take their own time for
selecting products and can generate the bill by their own without wasting time in queues. That
means customers can take the decision of how long they need to spend in the supermarket.
Smart Cart/ Trolley
The smart trolley is equipped with a barcode scanner, smart display screen and a load cell. The bar
code scanner will be useful to identify the each product that is selected and kept inside the cart.
Customer has to swipe the barcode indicated in the product using the barcode scanner in the trolley
before keeping the selected product in the cart. This barcode scanner is a portable device that can
be easily move around the cart. This will allow the customer to scan large weighted products
without holding on hands.
The barcodes which pasted or indicated on the product is unique to each type of product. These
barcodes are consisted with name of the product, price and weight of the product. And these
information are linked with the master database which handles at the supermarket. Once a product
is scanned with the quantity taken to the cart, these information will be updated automatically in
the database. This database will be specially designed using SQL server and the smart display
screen interface will be designed using VB.net which consisted with user friendly commands.
The barcode scanner is required to identify a product therefore can recognize the price and the
weight of the product from the database once the product is scanned through the barcode scanner.
The number of units that is placed in the cart can be input by using the smart display screen. The
quantity of the product has to be mentioned at the time of the product is scanned. This can be easily
done through smart display screen.
And a load cell is fitted at the base of the trolley as a weight sensor which is helpful to measure
the weight of the product basket in the trolley. It will indicate the weight of the trolley once each
of the product placed inside the cart. The load cell is used not to measure the actual weight of the
product but will be helpful in the case of discrepancy. This will be useful to verify the number of
products scanned through the barcode scanner with the number of products inside the trolley. Any
mismatch can be identified by notifications pop up in the smart display screen. If mistakenly an
extra product is placed in the trolley then a message will be pop up immediately in the screen. So
the customer itself can correct the mistake by placing the correct quantity in the cart.
Smart Card
By introducing a smart card system, customers get the privilege to pay the bill generated using the
smart trolley. Thereby customers will not need to bring cash to pay the bill. Instead they can swipe
the smart card in the barcode scanner fixed in the smart trolley. Any extra payment required can
be done as a cash payment.
Operation of the Smart Shopping System
Customer Enter to the Supermarket
Scan the product bar code using the bar code scanner
Yes
Display the Total Current Purchase Amount in the Smart Display
Yes
Is there any other product need to
be select?
No
Swipe the Smart Card
No
Pop Up a
Message
This special card is designed with the main objective of minimizing the time spent by the consumer
at the cashier counter for billing. It will allow a speedy checkout for the customer and reduces the
burden of the cashier in handling cash all the time.
The customer can purchase a smart card using two methods. He can either purchase it through the
special smart card top up center located inside the supermarket or purchase it online through the
supermarket website. For those who apply for a smart card online will receive the card through
register post. Initial top up for the smart card would be Rs.1500/- and the customer can top up any
amount thereafter.
There are two top up options for smart cards.
Option 1: Top up the card for any amount through the Smart card top up center located inside
every supermarket outlet.
Option 2: Log on to the online account and top up money through credit card or debit card.
Special promotions and discounts will be available for the customers who will be using the smart
card for the purchase of products.
When purchasing the goods, if the bill amount exceeds the smart card top up amount, the customer
gets the opportunity to pay the balance amount in cash to the cashier.
SMART
TOP -UP
Is the consumer
applying online?
No
Yes
Create an online account through
the supermarket website
Is the consumer
regularly top-up
online?
Yes
Automatically update the account
online
End
No
Start
Yes
Pay the balance through the cash or
credit/debit card
End
No
As a result of the Smart Cart and the smart card implementation in the super market, following
benefits can be identifying. The identification of the benefits is going to divide base on two view
points, such as Customers side and Companies side.
Companys Point of View
Time and cost related to employees will be saved
Since the smart cart reduces the work load of the employees, the business organization can decrees
its labor cost. Also workers will be motivated since they have a new task to achieve and more
freedom to interact with the customers in a friendly manner due to less movement with the cash.
Low maintains cost since it is an offline system
When it comes to the trouble shooting and maintaining of the systems, online systems are more
hard to maintain, but since the proposed system runs offline it is easy to do the maintain and trouble
shooting. For the smart card maintaining and hosting business organization can ask the assistance
of the respective banks. It will enable the business to share their responsibilities about the smart
card.
High accuracy in calculating the stock and maintaining the ERP system
Once the business organization implemented the smart cart for the operation, it will helps to create
more accurate daily sale and stock reports with less amount of deviation, also this will support to
the ERP system of the company to run its functions smoothly and accurately by providing the
update informations.
Premises rush will be reduce
With the new system, customer doesnt have to wait in the que in order to bill their goods, they
can see the amount by using the smart cart and pay the amount by using EMT methods or by using
the newly implemented smart card. In order to develop and encourage this business organization
can provide loyalty benefits for the smart card users. This will reduce the premises rush and create
more pleasant environment for the customers to visit.
Reference
Ankit Anil Agarwal, Saurabh Kumar Sultania, Gourav Jaiswal and Prateek Jain on RFID Based
Automatic Shopping Cart in Control Theory and Informatics ; ISSN 2224-5774 (print) ISSN
2225-0492 (online),Vol 1, No.1, 2011
J.Awati and S.Awati, Smart Trolley in Mega Mall, in International Journal of Emerging
Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2,
Issue 3, March 2012)
Raju Kumar, K. Gopalakrishna, K. Ramesha on Intelligent Shopping Cart in International
Journal of Engineering Science and Innovative Technology (IJESIT) Volume 2, Issue 4, July
2013
Satish Kamble, Sachin Meshram, Rahul Thokal, Roshan Gakre on Developing a Multitasking
Shopping Trolley Based On RFID Technology in International Journal of Soft Computing and
Engineering (IJSCE) ISSN: 2231-2307, Volume-3, Issue-6, January 2014
IEEE ANTENNAS & PROPAGATION MAGAZINE, 48, 2006, PP:212-218 Theory and
propagation magazine, 48, 2006, pp: 212-218, Theory and Measurement of Back scatting from
RFID tags,P.V.NIKITIN, K.V.S. RAO.