Here's a quick guide to the tasks
you will need to do once you have read the background
to the game and examined the data about the store
proposal.
There are a series of tasks for you
to do and you will see your progress through them by looking at the top
of the page where there is a toolbar that has the following headings:
Research, Strategy, Space, Staff, Stock and Report. A tick will appear
against each one as you complete each page. You can go back to a previous
task at anytime (but you cannot jump back two stages in one go). Below
is a quick guide as to what you are required to do at each of the key
task pages. Included in the table is a list of relevant links you may
want to ensure you have visited and read.
Stage
Taskbar description
Tasks explained and some tips
Links to visit as an absolute minimum. Be
warned this is NOT the full set of links.
1
Research
These pages provide you with all the relevant
information on the game.
The first decisions to be made require you to decide which 3 product
groups from a choice of 8 to stock. Be careful that you consider
the fashion sector information, the local trading conditions, competition
and consumer base.
You might want to visit some fashion retailers to see how they
put together a coherent product offering.
Having chosen your 3 product groups from the strategy page, you
will be presented with a screen showing the 5 products in each of
the 3 product groups. You will need to allocate space to each of
the fifteen products. The game won't let you allocate less than
the minimum or more than the maximum space for each product. You
will also need to allocate space to a number of non-selling elements.
Visit retailers to establish how they apportion space and read up
on the topic.
See how as you add space the turnover and profit figure counter
changes. You will also see how your wage budget changes too. Just
how are you going to apportion space?
Your decisions on service levels and wage
rates will have been brought forward from the strategy page. However,
you have an opportunity to test out the impact of various service
levels and wage rates which will then give you different numbers of
annual hours to use for staffing the store. The target hours that
are generated are a guideline and are related to the annual trading
pattern. You also have to decide what proportion of staff should be
permanent and temporary.
Check out the annual,
and weekly trading patterns
so you apportion staff in a suitable manner.
6
Stock
Here you are presented with a series of stock
prevention options. There aren't any costs identified but this is
something you might want to try to find out about yourself. The data
for this section comes from work done by Mike Pretious and colleagues.
You might want to read their article to give you further detailed
background.
You will have to print off your results page when you are happy
with what you have done. You will find the print button at the bottom
of the report page. You can have as many attempts at the game as
you want (and of course you can print off as many different combinations
as you want too). By doing this you will be able to see the impact
of differing stock strategy, space allocations and service and wage
rate choices.
Did you have a sound rationale for doing all these tasks when you
started and have you got a defensible proposition?
Once you are happy with your results you will have to submit your
print out. One final task is to show where you would site all the
different products and non-selling elements on the store plan. To
help you with this task the print out lists your choices in square
feet and also has a number in (brackets). The number in the ( )
tells you how many squares you have to use for each of the products
and non-selling elements So colour in your plan making sure you
have a clear key, and make any other annotations on your store plan
to help the tutor mark it. And remember you also need to submit
another piece of written work too.