1.1 Introduction
Modern supermarket is a day-to-day transaction that is carried out, with adequate reports and feedback on the status of the inventory and account. Transaction processing and report system is always very important to managements of the modern shops. The point of sale of every supermarket handle daily transaction and processing, referencing the stock and taking into consideration the expired of products in the stock, from the point of sale, the account status of the general transaction exercise is ascertained. The daily transaction does not just take place without updating the stock to make sure that no product runs out of stock. The expired data of every product is also tested on daily basis with the generated income all these products report, which is submitted to the management’s decision making.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
A supermarket accounting has accounts receivable and accounts payable system. It can be computer implementation, receivables are expected payment for sales and services, the computer system records print customs statement, controls credit and records payment and expenditure. Marketing concentrates primarily on the buyers, or consumers. After determining the customers’ needs and desires, marketers develop strategies that are designed to educate customers about a product’s most important features, persuade them to buy it, and then to enhance their satisfaction with the purchase. Where marketing once stopped with the sale, today businesses believe that it is more profitable to sell to existing customers than to new ones. As a result, marketing now also involves finding ways to turn one-time purchasers into lifelong customers. Marketing includes planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the decision-making regarding product lines, pricing, promotion, and servicing. In most of these areas marketing has overall authority; in others, as in product-line development, its function is primarily advisory. In addition, the marketing department of a business firm is responsible for the physical distribution of the products, determining the channels of distribution that will be used, and supervising the profitable flow of goods from the factory or warehouse.
The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, the inefficiency and lack of effectiveness in focus group and individual market research or survey methods by developing a windows based application that uses qualitative (also called subjective or judgmental) survey techniques to report consumers behavior or reaction towards particular product(s) and/or service(s) of company over a reasonable period of time.
There are two types of research: qualitative and quantitative. To gain a general impression of the market, consumers, or the product, companies generally start with qualitative research. This approach asks open-ended rather than yes or no questions in order to enable people to explain their thoughts, feelings, or beliefs in detail. One of the most common qualitative research techniques is the focus group in which a moderator leads a discussion among a small group of consumers who are typical of the target market. The discussion usually involves a particular product, service, or marketing situation. Focus groups can yield insights into consumer perceptions and attitudes, but the findings cannot be applied to the whole market, because the sample size is too small. Focus group results, then, are suggestive rather than definitive.
It is against the background that the developments of this software to enable management to know the task of customers, form the oftenest of request of the particular stock by customers, which will be noted form the transaction file on how to manage a supermarket. At the end of this project, the research work, the software will be able to provide precise and concise logic which aid of computer system will effectively handle operation, which were being manually carried out in the computerization of a modern shop.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed the challenges of the existing system which entails that, the manual method of handling the transaction process and report of any modern shop makes the work very tedious and difficult. It wastes a lot of time an does not always produce accurate and reliable reports. The system is also very expensive to maintain.
The use of manual method causes a lot of people queue up by the cashier’s table waiting. It takes another number of days to make the daily transaction to be update with the stock status and also the use of manual method delays management decision taking because the reports for the management decision making comes very late and not accurate.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a computerized transaction processing and reporting system for a modern supermarket. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Provide more effective, easy to use, cost affection accurate and comprehensive in report generation;
- Provide documentation of transaction file on how to manage a supermarket;
- Detect the problems marring the smooth operation with a view of providing solution to the problems using a computerized system; and
- Monitor the activities of transaction processing and reporting system of Eastern shop.
1.5 Significance of Study
The project reports consumers’ reactions and how their responses will affect production and sales of the company’s products. Basically, it is helpful for the organization to improve the quality of its relationship management with their customers. This software can organize a comprehensive survey profile of respective products and can use customer information collected into database for effective decision-making. Other benefits of the application include:
- Quality and efficiency in service delivery
- Decision support for effective managerial functions
- Enterprise agility
- Customer attention
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the design and implementation of a computerized transaction processing and reporting system for a modern supermarket using Eastern Shop Enugu System in Stock Product as a case study. Account and record keeping system treated in this work covered basically the use of computer in a modern supermarket for the effective and smooth management of supermarket inventories of stock and daily sales.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Internet: The Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world.
Business: A business is defined as an organization or enterprising entity engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities.
Virtual Store: The virtual store is an online store that displays merchandise and an order form.
Marketing: Marketing is the process of teaching consumers why they should choose your product or service over those of your competitors, and is a form of persuasive communication.
Promotion Channels: In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue.
