| Course | MT102 Principles of Retailing |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 10 |
| Paper type | Retail strategy plan |
| Length | About 910 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT102 Unit 10
Win the Hobbyist, Keep the Beginner: A Unit 10 Retail Strategy Plan for Glassmere Aquatics
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT102: Principles of Retailing
Unit 10 Retail Strategy Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Glassmere Aquatics, its figures and every finding drawn from earlier units are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
Executive Summary
Glassmere Aquatics wins when it serves established hobbyists better than any pet superstore or online seller can, and it grows when it turns beginners into hobbyists. This plan makes five recommendations: reorganize the store around the planted-tank shopper, rebuild the filter assortment, replace deep cartridge promotions with smaller bundles, fix online stock accuracy and restore evening staffing while repairing the livestock guarantee. Together they are expected to raise conversion among hobbyists, reduce beginner losses and protect margin.
Situation
My Unit 2 profile described a fourteen-store specialty chain with about $31 million in sales, 40 percent from livestock. Its strengths are the livestock wall, the free water test and knowledgeable staff, all confirmed in my Unit 8 audit. Its weaknesses include a store layout that hides planted-tank supplies (Unit 3), a filter assortment heavy on duplicate sizes (Unit 4), a promotional plan that can give away margin (Unit 5), an online stock display that is wrong at low quantities (Unit 7) and a guarantee that fails beginners (Unit 8). Its main opportunity is the growth in planted tanks and nano tanks; its main threat is online sellers for anything that ships.
Positioning
For hobbyists who keep living tanks, Glassmere is the store where the fish, the plants and the advice are better than anywhere else in the region, and where a beginner can buy with confidence.
Recommendations
Store and merchandising. Create a planted-tank zone at the end cap facing the plant tanks, bringing together fertilizers, carbon dioxide kits and lighting, with a working planted display light. Evidence: Unit 3 found these items forty feet from the plants, and Unit 6 found a $129 light selling one unit a month in a dark bottom shelf. Expected effect: higher sales in the planted category and more time spent by hobbyists in the store. Cost and risk: low; the end cap currently holds general supplies.
Assortment. Adopt the Unit 4 filter plan, cutting eight duplicate or slow items and adding four, including sponge filters for shrimp and nano keepers, and building a good-better-best ladder in Glassmere's label. Expected effect: better service to the growing hobbyist group without losing shelf space. Risk: some loyal buyers of deleted models, softened by keeping their cartridges for a year.
Price and promotion. Replace buy-one-get-one-free offers on repeat items with buy-one-get-one-50-percent-off bundles. Evidence: Unit 5 showed a free cartridge pack requires a sales lift of more than 600 percent to hold margin, against 76 percent for the half-off bundle. Expected effect: protected margin in repeat categories, consistent with the margin arithmetic Hoch et al. (1994) reported for promotional pricing.
Channel. Update online stock hourly for items with fewer than five units and stop offering pickup when the system shows one or two. Evidence: Unit 7 found a pickup order that would have been canceled after the shopper planned around it. Gallino and Moreno (2014) found that reliable availability information can move shoppers into stores, which makes accuracy worth its cost. Expected effect: fewer canceled orders and greater trust in the site.
Service and staffing. Restore one evening associate per store, publish every guarantee condition and train register staff to handle livestock claims. Evidence: Unit 8 found a 22-minute guarantee claim with an unwritten condition, and Unit 9 linked the evening staffing cut to slower service and higher livestock losses. Expected effect: fewer beginners leaving after one loss and lower livestock shrink.
Implementation
In the first month, Glassmere would correct the guarantee policy and train register staff, since this costs little and affects beginners at once. In months two and three, it would update the website's stock logic and test the planted-tank zone and filter assortment in three stores. In month four, it would replace the cartridge promotion with the bundle in the circular. In months four through six, it would restore evening staffing in all stores, funded partly by margin protected through the promotion change, and roll out the planted zone and filter plan chain-wide if the test stores succeed.
Measures
Each recommendation has a measure. The planted zone is measured by planted-category sales and conversion at the test stores. The filter plan is measured by category sales and cartridge sales against control stores. The promotion change is measured by category margin dollars during and after each offer. The channel change is measured by the cancellation rate of pickup orders. The service change is measured by livestock shrink, the number of guarantee claims handled in under ten minutes and the share of first-time buyers who return within sixty days.
How the Recommendations Fit Together
The five changes depend on one another. Protected promotion margin helps pay for evening staffing. Better staffing improves the guarantee and reduces livestock losses. Accurate online stock brings hobbyists into stores where the planted zone and the filter assortment serve them better. Grewal et al. (2017) argue that retailers succeed by managing technology, the store and the customer relationship together rather than as separate projects, and this plan follows that approach for one regional chain.
Every recommendation in this plan serves the same two people: the hobbyist who already trusts the store and the beginner deciding whether to.
References
Gallino, S., & Moreno, A. (2014). Integration of online and offline channels in retail: The impact of sharing reliable inventory availability information. Management Science, 60(6), 1434-1451. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1951
Grewal, D., Roggeveen, A. L., & Nordfält, J. (2017). The future of retailing. Journal of Retailing, 93(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2016.12.008
Hoch, S. J., Drèze, X., & Purk, M. E. (1994). EDLP, hi-lo, and margin arithmetic. Journal of Marketing, 58(4), 16-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299405800402
Reading the MT 102 Unit 10 instructions
The final unit asks you to bring your earlier work together into a strategy plan for your retailer. Most sections require an executive summary, a situation analysis, a positioning statement, recommendations, an implementation sequence and measures. Write the executive summary so it could be read alone. Build the situation from your earlier units rather than new research, though updated figures are welcome. State the positioning in one sentence naming the target shopper and the reason to choose this retailer. Each recommendation should give a claim, the evidence from a named earlier unit, the expected effect on the shopper and the cost or risk. Sequence the implementation with rough timing, and give each recommendation a measure. A closing section showing how the recommendations reinforce one another strengthens the plan. Five pages or more is common, with references to the retailer, trade sources and the textbook.
Inside the MT102 Unit 10 example
The sample's executive summary names the five recommendations and their combined effect in one paragraph. The situation section draws each strength and weakness from a named unit, from the hidden fertilizer in Unit 3 to the failed guarantee in Unit 8. The positioning sentence centers the hobbyist and the beginner. Recommendations follow by lever: a planted-tank zone, the Unit 4 filter plan, half-off bundles in place of free cartridges, hourly stock updates with a pickup buffer, and restored evening staffing with a published guarantee. Hoch, Drèze and Purk support the promotion change and Gallino and Moreno the stock change. The implementation runs from low-cost fixes in month one to chain-wide rollout by month six, with one measure for each recommendation. A closing section, drawing on Grewal, Roggeveen and Nordfält, shows how protected margin pays for staffing.
Reading the MT102 Unit 10 grading rubric
Final plans are graded on continuity, specificity and coherence. Recommendations that cite the earlier unit where their evidence was gathered earn more than new ideas, since the rubric is built to reward a term of connected work. Each recommendation should include an expected effect and a risk, and a measure that could be checked. An executive summary that stands alone, and a positioning statement that names a shopper and a reason, show professional writing. A sequenced implementation with rough dates proves the plan could actually start. A section showing how the recommendations support one another, rather than a list of separate fixes, tends to earn the highest marks. Gallino and Moreno, Grewal and colleagues, and Hoch and colleagues are the plan's sources, cited where they support a recommendation. Headings matching the prompt help the grader.
MT102 Unit 10 help: mistakes that cost points
Many final plans introduce new ideas with no link to the term's evidence, which wastes the earlier units. Others list a dozen recommendations without effects, risks or measures. A common gap is the executive summary, which often restates the introduction instead of the recommendations. Some plans skip implementation timing or measures entirely. Writers also treat recommendations as separate fixes and never show how they fit together. If an earlier paper had a weak spot, correct it here and say so briefly; instructors generally reward revision. Four to six recommendations usually cover the main retail levers without spreading thin. Keep figures consistent with your earlier units. Send us your earlier papers and the plan's required headings, and a writer will help you trace each recommendation back to its evidence.
Get an MT102 Unit 10 example written to your instructions
For a plan this size, the more of your earlier work the better: gather your prior unit papers, even the rough ones, along with the final prompt and its rubric. Assembly takes 24-48h, the first plan is written at no cost, and each recommendation cites the unit it came from. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT102 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
- MT102 Unit 1: Retail Formats Post
- MT102 Unit 2: Retailer Profile
- MT102 Unit 3: Store Observation Report
- MT102 Unit 4: Assortment Plan
- MT102 Unit 5: Pricing Exercise
- MT102 Unit 6: Merchandising Analysis
- MT102 Unit 7: Channel Comparison
- MT102 Unit 8: Customer Experience Audit
- MT102 Unit 9: Seminar Reflection on Shrink
- LI410 Unit 10: Leadership Development Plan
MT102 Unit 10 questions, answered
Can the final plan introduce new research?
Yes, particularly to update figures or capture something the retailer announced during the term. The core of the plan should still rest on earlier units, because that continuity is what most rubrics are built to reward. Mark new research clearly and use it to confirm or revise earlier findings rather than to replace them wholesale.
How many recommendations should a strong plan make?
Enough to cover the major retail levers without spreading thin, which often means somewhere around four to six. Each recommendation needs evidence, an expected effect and a measure, so a long list of shallow ideas scores worse than a short list of defended ones. If your prompt names specific areas the plan must address, cover each at least once.
What if my earlier papers had weak spots?
Fix them here. The final plan is a chance to correct a pricing error, add evidence to a thin observation or update a profile, and instructors generally reward revision over repetition. Note briefly where a finding changed and why, which shows the kind of judgment the course has been building toward since the first unit.
Where can I find a free MT102 Unit 10 sample paper?
This page carries the complete MT102 Unit 10 retail strategy plan for a composite aquarium chain, with an executive summary, positioning, five recommendations, implementation, measures, references and margin notes.
How do the five recommendations fit together?
Margin protected by replacing free cartridge offers helps pay for evening staffing, better staffing improves the guarantee and reduces livestock losses, and accurate online stock sends hobbyists into stores built to serve them.