Let’s look more closely at some of the attributes that often influence supermarket choice decisions. Nine frequently cited attributes are:

1.    Low prices

2.    Choice of national versus private labels

3.    Ease of parking and loading

4.    Fast checkouts

5.    Produce quality

6.    Convenience (including hours, location, ease of entrance and parking, ease of finding items)

7.    Services (including credit, delivery, return policy, and guarantees)

8.    Store personnel (including helpfulness, friendliness, and courtesy)

9.    Advertised “specials” in stock

For your assignment you are to rank these attributes in order of importance to you. After ranking them, take the most important attribute and assign it the value of 10, take the second most important attribute and assign it the value of 9. Continue to do this for your top five attributes with your fifth attribute getting a value of 6.

Now visit two grocery stores, hardware stores or home improvement centers and assign a value (1 being very poor, 10 being very good) to the stores’ performance on your five attributes. Multiply your rank value by their performance value for each attribute and sum the total.

Show me the stores that were compared, your rating for each and total for each.

Is the store with the highest total points your favorite?

If not, why is there a difference?