Swot Analysis Of Trader Joe's

Trader Joe’s is a major food retailer who has developed quite the name for themselves. It has well over 350 stores in over 32 states and is expected to continually grow over the next few years (Bond, 2012). For over 50 years, Trader Joe’s has been providing quality customer services, products and a unique shopping experience for its customers. They have come a very long way from when they first officially opened their doors. Trader Joe’s started when its founder Joe Coulombe wanted to find a way to differentiate his 7-Eleven stores (Schermerhorn, Osborn, Uhl-Bien & Hunt, 2012). In the food retailer industry, Trader Joe’s has developed a process that works well and

Trader Joe’s has great workforce management practices and its employees enjoy what they do. They have cheerful attitudes and are more than willing to assist customers with anything in the store. Trader Joe’s employees are engaged in conversation with the customers that shop in the store and make the customers aware of any new or exciting products from them to try. The positive behavior of these employees is due to the compensation and benefits each employee receives, which is far more competitive than other grocery food stores. Trader Joe’s has also created an environment where employees feel valued and know their opinions matter to the growth of the

Thirdly, Trader Joe’s stores are small and located in non-prime locations, which holds fixed operating costs at bay. Furthermore, the company is able to generate the industry’s highest sales per square feet in its small sized stores. In an effort to diversify from its competitors, Trader Joe’s also relies on a non-traditional marketing strategy. Completely neglecting conventional marketing techniques like commercials or promotional offers, the company focuses on unique and store specific in-store marketing with its newsletter and the occasional radio ad being its major means of communication with its customers. The Trader Joe’s brand with its vast fan base is naturally another part of the company’s competitive advantage.

Publix serves over one million, mostly time-impoverished customers that are becoming more knowledgeable and demanding every day. These customers, who typically live in the nearby area for a generation, spend $5,000 on groceries per year, and many say they don't mind paying a little more to shop in Publix's customer oriented, clean stores staffed with well-trained and friendly employees. In addition, they are cost-conscious bargain shoppers who are turning towards store brands more and more. Finally, their customers are becoming increasingly more health conscious. About 70% of women and 54% of men consider nutrition an important factor in their food purchases (Mujtaba & Johnson).

Trader Joe stands by their mission statement as being a neighborhood store and a private label brand. The firm offers organic, locally sourced produce and ingredients, offering a wide variety of fresh items that are hard to find enabling the business to enjoy a distinctive competitive advantage. Additionally, through local sourcing Trader Joe’s continued involvement in local events through food donations, gift baskets and providing in store and online recipes and health guides. Apart from the many strengths of Trader Joe, the most significant is their commitment to quality at lower prices. Trader Joe has worked hard to manage the balance by sourcing directly from their suppliers. The firm states that “every penny we save is every penny our customer saves.” Similarly to WFM, their employees are its most valuable resource they possess, and as such they are treated fairly and trained to provide the first class service to Trader Joe’s customers. Each customer is given

Trader Joe’s is known for their unique grocery shopping experience. From their friendly employees donning Hawaiian shirts to their selection of great tasting, well priced foods, Trader Joe’s is the place to be, either as an employee or customer. As an employee for Trader Joe’s, one earns more money than employees at other major grocery stores, and one receives benefits such as vision, medical, and dental insurance, paid vacations, company paid retirement, and an employee discount of 10%. As a customer, one is greeted by friendly faces, is able to try new things, and has a unique shopping experience at a low cost. However, not everything can always be perfect. Trader Joe’s was nicknamed “Traitor Joe’s” when they were ranked the worst on

“Trader Joe’s has designed jobs to increase job satisfaction by showing appreciation in providing more benefits to their employees than other chain grocers. They provide starting benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, company-paid retirement, paid vacation, and a 10% employee discount, Pg. w-100.” Traders Joes also recruits people with certain personality traits that the company wants in their stores. They are able to enrich their employees with knowledge of their products that they are selling, as well as inducing customer involvements. As a result, they are able to have higher job performance because they are able to train and

The main competitors in the industry are all small to medium and large sized purveyors of organic foods. The major threat comes from Whole Foods Market. This firm is best positioned to compete and control a sizable market share due to its growth strategy. Much of Whole Foods Market inventory is a result of mergers and acquisitions of small, independent retailers of organic foods and specialty products (Whole Foods Market History, n.d.). Our competitors that we must pay the closest attention are Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s. Although Whole Foods Market has a merger and acquisitions growth strategy; Trader Joe’s surpasses Whole Foods Market in sales—$1,734 versus $934 per square foot respectively; due to higher product costs and failure

Trader Joe’s demographics are college students, health conscious, out-of-work professors, and most important educated customers.

They continue to remain at the top and keep their market position by providing a focused differentiation strategy by maintaining low costs and high quality specialized products, primarily with their private label brand and offering a unique shopping experience with excellent customer service. According to our textbook, “customers shop Trader Joe’s as much as for entertainment as for conventional grocery items – the store stocks out-of-the-ordinary culinary treats like raspberry salsa, salmon burgers, and jasmine fried rice, as well as the standard goods normally found in supermarkets” (Crafting and Executing Strategy: Concepts and Readings, 2016). They target well educated areas, with mid-income levels, as well as college towns. The millennial generation, is another target as they represent a large part of the population and are very likely to purchase healthy, organic products. Stores are small, with a neighborhood feel, where customers have easy access to get what they need and get out quickly. They have been able to prosper during recessions as they have been able to keep their prices low by dealing directly with suppliers and eliminating the middleman.

Trader Joe’s is a neighborhood grocery store that is committed to providing selective products that cannot be found in any other of the big box grocery chains (Olsen, 2006). The company’s strategy is to provide an extraordinary shopping experience by providing unmatched customer service to its customers, such as offering warmth, attentive employees, and supreme value (Olsen, 2006). The company takes pride in the quality of their private label products, which is the majority of the items stocked on the shelves.

For the past 5 years, Kroger is making profits every year; however, compared to Publix and Safeway’s 5-year-average figures, Kroger has the lowest profit ratios based on the gross profit margin, operating profit margin and net profit margin. Gross profit margin figures are relatively stable for the past 5 years while operating profit margin shows improvements: 1.4% in 2010 and 2011 while the figure has jumped to 2.8% to 2.9% during the year, 2012 to 2014. The net profit margin shows relatively stable making 1.4% to 1.6% range except for the year, 2011 of 0.7% which is more than half less than the other yearsFor the past 5 years, Kroger is making profits every year; however, compared to Publix and Safeway’s 5-year-average figures, Kroger has

The Kroger brand was born in 1883, Bernard 'Barney ' Kroger took his life savings of $372 to open his first store in downtown Cincinnati. This location is by I-71 that passes the Great American Ballpark. Barney Kroger, the son of a merchant, had a simple "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself." This was the credo that would serve The Kroger Co. well over the next 130 years as the supermarket business evolved into a variety of formats aimed towards satisfying the needs of their shoppers in as many aspects as possible. With nearly 3,619 stores in 34 states under 24 different names, such as Kroger, Dillons, Turkey Hill Minit Markets, Ralphs, Tom Thumb Food Stores, QuikStop, Fred Meyer Jewelers, and Littman Jewelers with an annual revenue of more than $70 billion. Kroger today ranks as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

In the retail market, data record inaccuracies forms one of the most important causes of out-of stock situation. This leads to decrease in revenue for the retailers. Again, the organizations have to bear significant labor costs due to the manual system of data transfer regarding product information. This leads to indirect effects on poor data quality on the supply and demand chain (Legner & Schemm 2008, p.21). Coles Supermarkets have been using barcoding since early nineties. One of the challenges they have been facing was with the manual entries and increased labor costs if a barcode fails to scan. Secondly, barcodes lacked real-time product tracking and this is extremely important for them, as the supply chain is vast in terms of the intermediaries and the locations from which the goods are supplied and delivered. Coles have suppliers within Australia as well as from countries like India, China and Bangladesh. Due to this, they were lacking best practice opportunities of factory gate pricing and reverse logistics (Coles Centenary 2015)

Walmart and Amazon have become global, household names in the US and for good reason: both of these companies have revolutionized the way in which we shop. Amazon offers a convenient experience, and an ever-expanding selection of products whereas Walmart has a wide network of store locations and famously low prices. As investments, these companies highlight the dichotomous nature of the retail industry – brick-and-mortar vs e-commerce; high growth vs steady growth; US vs International; actual vs market expectations. This report provides an in depth comparative analysis between Walmart and Amazon. We will first summarize the industry and these companies, followed by an analysis of market position and financials, and finally an