An Investigation Into the Causes and Effects Os Sales Decline

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review integrates and synthesizes what has been thought and researched in the area of interest and offer for future inquiries. The researcher will review theoretical and empirical literature on service delivery and customer satisfaction. Sources of literature review include published books, relevant magazines, professional journals, the internet, organizational memorandum, organizational minutes of meetings and other publications of relevant literature.

The researcher seeks to review related literature in an attempt to establish a link between the study the accumulated knowledge in the chosen field of service delivery and consumer satisfaction. This shall be done in an attempt to find lasting solutions to the problem of shortage of lower currency divisions and coins that is negatively affecting service delivery at Gutsai Supermarket and inconveniencing consumers.

This chapter will lay a theoretical foundation on which the whole project is based. Amosweb (2009) assets that “This characteristic means money can be divided into increments that can be used in exchange for goods of varying values. For an item to function as the medium of exchange which can be used to purchase a wide range of different goods with a wide range of different values, then it must be divisible. The smaller the divisions, the better for an item to item to function as the medium of exchange, it must have increments that allow it to be traded for both battleships and bubble gum and everything in between.”
Divisibility is one reason why metals such as gold, silver, copper and nickel have been widely used as money throughout history. As pure elements each can be divided into really, really small units in principle, down to the molecular level. In contrast, livestock which has seen limited use as money in less sophisticated agrarian society never become widely used as money never in modern economies. Dividing live water buffalo into increments small enough to buy a bubble gum is impractical. For example in the United States of America , the U.S money both paper currency and bank account balances, comes in increments of one penny, sufficiently divisible to accurately match the value of virtually every good and service available in the economy. I f the U.S money consisted exclusively of $100 gold coins and nothing smaller, people would have problems buying goods such as soft drinks, gasoline, or bubble gum. These goods and millions more have values that cannot be rounded on the nearest $100.

Mark on Markets.com/2009/08. states that “money, it seem is a curious thing, throughout human history people have organized for themselves various methods and items through which they can exchange and store wealth. If we were to examine the historical developments of what we conceive of money, we would find that one of the properties that money tends to pick up along its journey is called divisibility.” Sadly today our money is not divisible. If it were, one would be able to cut a dollar bill in half and treat each as fifty cents. One can see why money tends to develop this property because really it would be pretty cool if we lived in a world where one could make change by cutting his/her money up. In fact the fore bearers did live in such a world and they cut up silver dollars into eight pieces and used the “bits” (Wikipedia) to buy and sell items of leisure value.

Mark on Markets.com argues that “There is a new (albeit obscure) development that focuses on the divisibility of money. The Northwest Territorial Mint has released a divisible silver bar. That is, it is one ounce of silver that one can easily break into four separate pieces, each exactly one fourth of an ounce.”

The researcher found the text below to be relevant to the research at hand
“For When You Have to Get out of Dodge” Protect and prepare for an oncoming crisis when one owns “divisible” 1-02 Stagecoach Silver bars from Northwest Territorial Mint. This portable and tradable bullion is perfect for when one need to get out of the dodge fast. Each 999-fine silver bar is scored into four pieces, giving them the potential to be split up should the need arise. With these silver barter bars one will carry change in his/her hand. Should the need arise, the changeable nature of Stagecoach silver will enhance one’s flexibility in any financial or trade scenario.”(http//www.on the efficiency of monetary exchange; why divisibility of money.com)

Why divisibility of money matters?
To explore the researcher will introduce a mismatch problem into search theoretical model of monetary exchange. The researcher will use alternative assumptions about the divisibility of goods and money and the ability of agents to use lotteries money. This framework potentially generates three types of inefficiencies. First, the no trade inefficiency where no trade takes place even though it would be socially efficient to trade, secondly, the too much trade and lastly the too little trade inefficiencies where the quantities produced and exchanged are either larger or smaller than what the solution to a social planner’s problem would dictate. It is shown that while the no trade and too much trade inefficiencies are caused by the indivisibility of money, the too little trade inefficiency is due to the impatience of the consumer and the time consuming process of trade.(Berentsen,2000).