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Campus Grocery StoreAmazon Go PartnershipProfessor MillerASU 121: Emerging Leaders14 April 2020There is a lack of stores that are willing to provide students at ASU with fresh produce and healthier foods. On-campus or close to campus, there are not any grocery stores that offer quick and easy access for students. If you want to get fresh food, you would need to walk at least one mile, depending on where you are. On-campus we have the POD market, which does not sell fresh produce. Instead, the POD market sells a lot of snacks and premade food sold at an unbelievable mark-up of more than double what I could find in normal grocery stores. Another thing that is not acknowledged is that students do have dietary restrictions and specific food allergies. They would not be able to eat some of the food sold at the POD because it contains something that students cannot eat, for example, there are some students that are allergic to peanuts, eggs, or dairy products, which can result in the student being hungry or not getting a proper full meal. If there were a grocery store on campus, students would be able to pick and choose what they can eat and make for a nutritious meal. This does not only effect on-campus students but can also affect off-campus students, as well because they also are on campus for hours a day and do not have a good and affordable place to eat. Some students who live off-campus do not have access to vehicles and cannot travel very far lugging groceries around because they get dropped off instead of driving or walking to class from their dorms. With a conveniently placed grocery store, both on-campus and off-campus students can quickly get groceries and fresh produce at an affordable price.This topic is very obviously relevant because of the complete lack of a substantial grocery store or a market on the campus, which really limits the students who live on campus to the POD or other stores like Whole Foods, Target and Safeway, which, as already mentioned, is far, inconvenient and requires travelling in the Arizona heat. Although those are good choices, they are not even close to some of the best options for students because of the convenience of the POD market. The closest grocery store is Whole Foods, which also happens to be the most expensive, the second closest is Safeway at nearly 2 miles from campus, and Target is the furthest away at 7 miles away from campus. This topic is relevant as 89% of the students we surveyed wanted more grocery options on campus. A common response was that “other stores are too far away, and the POD doesn't have everything I need.” The closest stores are Whole Foods, Safeway, and Target. They are still a good distance away from campus. From an off-campus perspective, it is still a good amount of distance from the apartments that are the closest to those grocery stores. Many find themselves having to get food at least once every 2 weeks. Getting food more often would be a lot easier to be able to stop and get food on the way back from class. A grocery store on campus would make getting groceries almost effortless. The main solution that we came up with to solve the problem, that is the lack of choice and the amount of expensive food, was to have ASU make an agreement with Amazon, or any major grocery store. However, we would prefer to be able to get Amazon, or more specifically Amazon Go, to be the grocer that caters to ASU students, for multiple reasons. One of the main reasons is choice, there is no choice on ASU’s Tempe Campus to buy fresh food to take home and cook that is within walking distance and that is affordable for the average student. There is a Whole Foods on University Drive, but in the summer, which is most of the year in Arizona, it is hot and most students do not have the proper transportation, along with there being a very high difficulty in finding affordable food on ASU (Stefkovich, Megan). Another reason to get a grocer on/near campus is to improve upon what I will call the “student economy” (Bernhardt, Jordan). This is because, logically with there being a grocery store on campus, there will also be more jobs, jobs that students could have that would help them pay for books, tuition, new materials needed for school or just money to spend on the side. The money they earn will also most likely get spent on the ASU campus, meaning that not only would ASU make money off of renting out space to a grocer, but also make more money from the students spending that money on campus, at dining halls, the P.O.D., or the bookstore. Along with this change also help stimulate the local economy as students would also spend their money in places that are off campus if that is at all possible. At the same time it would increase the overall student morale because scientifically speaking, money does buy happiness and more money in the students pockets means a higher morale and potentially better grades, which would end up potentially getting the school more grant money along with other things of that manner (Rampton, John). Another obvious question about this grocery store idea is quite obviously the location of the grocery store. In our opinion the best location would be on the north side of the Tempe campus near the intersection of University and McAlister. Most students live in the dorms near this location: Manzanita, Tooker, Palo Verde East, and Palo Verde West. All of these dorms are where the majority of Tempe students that live on campus live, and that can be seen by the majors that people have. The plurality of ASU students are in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, meaning that the plurality of on campus students are housed in Manzanita (The College, ASU). Because of this the location that we would prefer must be close to the students, and it is. The place that we would like the Amazon Go grocery store to be is in a vacant lot North-West of Old Main next to the disability parking lot (Tempe, Google Maps). Although a building would need to be constructed in that location, over a long period of time the location would become profitable, and with ASU receiving plenty of government funding and can wait for the investment to pan out in the long term, also, depending on the deal that is made with Amazon either ASU or Amazon would end up constructing the building, allowing there to be flexibility in this particular area of the business. This location could support a building up to 18,000 square feet. A typical grocery store is around 40,000 square feet, but the first Amazon Go location was 10,000 square feet (GE Current). Trader Joe’s locations average 12,000 square feet. The current POD market in the Memorial Union is approximately 2,500 square feet.You may be finding yourself asking “Why would a grocer would want to bring their business onto our campus?”, and to put it quite plainly, there are 50,000 students on the Tempe campus, and there are neighborhoods near the campus as well. To get a grocer in, we simply need to point out that there is this obvious market that could potentially make them boatloads of money. It has even been proven that this works because Target launched some small stores on college campuses’ and now they are expanding to tap into more of that market (Redman, Russell). This shows that there is a demand and that it needs to be filled, a demand that must be filled and will eventually be filled, with or without the help of ASU, making ASU lose that potential profit. At the same time the costs to start this up will be somewhat all over the place, with the construction of the location being anywhere from three hundred thousand to six hundred thousand dollars. While the cost to implement the Amazon Go hardware will be around one million dollars to put in the store, perhaps less because of the size of the store (Cheng, Andria). On the other hand this would also be a good way to get Amazon to push out Amazon Go in a larger setting, giving them more name recognition and a better reputation when it comes to running an operation like this. At the same time it would give them a large opportunity to test out new things, since it would inevitably become a smaller destination. There is one main concern that Amazon could have with being on campus: shoplifting. However, with Amazon’s flagship technology, it is very possible that this threat could be minimized to a minute amount. For example, if ASU worked with Amazon and its technology, it would be possible to even completely eliminate shoplifting in the Amazon Go stores. The way to do this is, since there are no cashiers, is to allow Amazon to have access to the information of students and give them the ability to charge any items not bought using a debit or credit card to the student’s ASU account, similar to how it works with the printers, but perhaps easier with Amazon’s amazing technology. The technology that Amazon has, has given the store the ability to automatically charge customers for the items that they buy, and to buy the items all that customers need to do is grab what they want and then walk out of the store. Along with this Amazon Go will also deliver to people for a small fee, however if they have more than $50 worth of groceries that fee is waived, and during this unprecedented time in history, during a pandemic this could greatly help students that still decide to live on campus. Another reason why this kind of store would help during the Corona-Virus Era is that because of the lack of cashiers, baggers, and other employees, there will be less people working in the store and it also means no lines, meaning a lot less crowding and less people in one space for extended periods of time. Allowing this kind of store would ultimately be a benefit for all students and all parties involved, the local economy, the school, and Amazon itself.Works CitedCheng, Andria. “Amazon Go Looks To Expand As Checkout-Free Shopping Starts To Catch On Across The Retail Landscape.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 21 Nov. 2019, sites/andriacheng/2019/11/21/thanks-to-amazon-go-checkout-free-shopping-may-become-a-real-trend/#3f28b9d2792b. Dewan, Sabina, and Jordan Bernhardt. “Creating Just Jobs Must Be Our Top Priority.” Center for American Progress, American Progress, 16 Nov. 2012, issues/economy/news/2012/11/15/45121/creating-just-jobs-must-be-our-top-priority/.GE Current. “How Is the Grocery Store Footprint Changing?” ideas/how-is-the-grocery-store-footprint-changing.“Learn to Thrive at the Academic Heart of ASU.” The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, ASU, thecollege.asu.edu. McCorquodale, Amanda. “Campus Addresses Food Insecurity with at-Cost Grocery Store.” Food Management, 19 Nov. 2018, colleges-universities/campus-addresses-food-insecurity-cost-grocery-store.Map of Tempe, Google Maps, 2020Rampton, John. “Science Says Money Does Buy Happiness If You Spend It the Right Way.” Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, 2 Mar. 2018, article/309814. Redman, Russell. “Target Readies More College Campus Stores.” Supermarket News, Supermarket News, 2 July 2019, retail-financial/target-readies-more-college-campus-storesStefkovich, Megan. “Limited Amount of Grocery Stores on Campus Detrimental to Students.” The Badger Herald, 20 Jan. 2015, opinion/2015/01/20/limited-amount-of-grocery-stores-on-campus-detrimental-students/. ................
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