Why we should copy Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s does opposite of Amazon, and is wildly successful

Trader Joe’s (500 stores) is the most profitable grocery store in the USA. It makes shopping fun and its shoppers fanatics. It doesn’t offer coupons, discounts, loyalty points, delivery and online shopping.

One, its employees are more friendly than other stores. Customers will pay up to 16% more for products with good customer service. Two, they make shopping fun, and not convenient. They use fun names, hand-written signs, and limited run products. Three, they provide the similar products at lower prices, in a better environment. Four, they make it easy to choose products, by stocking less number of brands. Five, they listen to customers. Six, they are low tech, such as not collecting customer data.

As per Forbes: “We’re targeting to open 30 to 35 stores a year in the 48 states.The only thing that holds us back is having the right number of Captains and Mates to open up great stores. So we won’t open a store just because we can, we want to open a store that’s run by the right kind of people doing the right kinds of things, and that’s really important to us.”

Indian grocery businesses can learn from Trader Joe’s as it focusses more on customers, and less on the shiny things such as technology, social media marketing, and online delivery. One takeaway for the D2C brands would be using the newsletter, to explain customers about their products.

Dig deeper: 11 interesting things about Trader Joe’s Link