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TRADER JOE’S

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Trader Joe’s

Professors’ s Name

Date
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1. Describe Trader Joe's customer.

Traders Joe is a grocery store based in California, America. The company provides a variety of

natural meats, imported goods, and organic fruits, particularly frozen meat, to its customer.

Trader Joe targets people interested and willing to buy food because the store is strategically

located in a friendly environment. The company's primary target is urban professionals with

upper and low income aged 20-30 years. Trader Joe's secondary target is the young generation,

small families, married, and the singles.

2. Describe Trader Joe's value chain and how the company creates value for customers.

Value chain enhances positive relationships with the customers, suppliers, and employees.

Traders Joe has a unique way of maintaining its loyal customers. The store allows customers to

create fan pages to post their favorite meals using its product while others persuade the company

shareholders to open a store in their areas. The company works with pared-down suppliers to

ensure the prices are low than its competitors through making precise deliveries. The company

procures products directly from the suppliers, labels them directly as Trader Joe, and distributing

the products through a centralized chain to offer high quality at a lower price ( Adams, 2020).

To enhance customer satisfaction, the company focuses on low technologies and stocks the

shelves with the new products at night rather than during the night.

3. Discuss Trader Joe's level of diversification compared to other grocery stores.

Unlike most grocery stores, the company stores are smaller, but consumers are satisfied.

Traders Joe sells approximately one-ninth the number of SKUs but gets the revenue twice. Pak et

al. ( 2020) argue that The average SKU for groceries is 50,000 items. However, Traders Joe has
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an SKU of 4000 items, which is smaller than other grocery stores. Also, the company has less

square footage than an average grocery to maintain its branding strategy. Since products rotate,

the company introduces 10-15 new products every week and place the products on shelves

which is uncommon to most grocery stores. Most groceries are inconsistent in producing new

products and produce the goods if only need arise. Unlike most grocery stores that advertise

goods through newspapers and social media, Traders Joe only advertises its goods radios.

4. Name and defend atleast two potential courses of action that Trader Joe's could take to

protect and extend its competitive advantages. What trade-offs would each require?

To protect and extend the competitive advantage, the company could continue hiring

quality employees and maintaining their level of branding by opening several smaller stores. To

maintain high service, the company can hire experienced workers willing to work according to

the company's non connectionally tailored technique. Hiring skilled employees would require

the company to spend more on salaries and motivation. Trader Joe is a quiet and private retailer;

therefore, the company requires hiring employees who can keep the company's secrets of

packaging and product selection. Maintaining personal branding requires the company to

restructure the stores to create 180 degrees rotating shelves to create unique product selection

criteria.

5. Design a workable plan to implement your recommended course of action. How will the

plan affect relevant areas of the value chain?

The companies must first purchase at least one 180 degree rotating shelves to maintain

smaller stores to implement the strategies. Many rotating shelves would provide a unique

experience to the customers hence increased customer satisfaction and more sales. To hire
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quality employees, the company could hire employees on contract terms upon passing the

interviews. Consequently, the company would have a faster time corresponding to market

demands. The profit realized from the sales can be used to built other smaller stores globally. As

a result, the company would have to increase the suppliers to meet the customers' needs and

diversify the distribution channels.

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References

Adams, H. G. (2020). Trader Joe’s: A Case Analysis of Trader Joe's Competitive Strategy.

Pak, O., Ferguson, M., Perdikaki, O., & Wu, S. M. (2020). Optimizing stock‐keeping unit

selection for promotional display space at grocery retailers. Journal of Operations

Management, 66(5), 501-533.