Trader Joe's International Marketing Strategy

Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are grocery retailers who have become very successful. Both these companies offer whole, natural, and quality products but operate to a wide extent particularly in terms of inventory management and supply chain organizations. Trader Joe’s has incredible inventory management and their supply chain focuses on private labels and extreme secrecy while Whole Foods has poor inventory management but their supply chain is quick, nimble and versatile. A huge competitive advantage that Whole food has is that they keep their shelves packed with about 25,00 to 45,000 products while Trader Joe’s keeps about 4,000 products. However, Trader Joes’ still made about $1,750 per square foot in 2009, more than double of what Whole

Every retail location carries a variety of products that distinguishes it from other stores in the same chain. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to achieve economies of scale. Supply Chain Mackey describes his consumers as being “part of a cult”. Whole Foods believes that the company’s emphasis on perishables and locally-sourced produce differentiates their stores from run-of-the-mill supermarkets and attracts loyal and devoted customers. However, “fresh produce” is one of the most challenging product categories to operate due to limited product shelf life and high cost of spoilage. Whole Foods has tried to circumvent most of the problems inherent in supplying fresh produce to its stores by sourcing locally and having short and flexible supply chains. In the case of fruits and vegetables, Whole Foods has buying relationships with local farmers who supply the store with seasonal produce. Thus, if one farmer is unable to produce a sufficient amount of yellow corn or heirloom tomatoes, the shortfall can be made up by another farmer. Although challenging to perfect, these short supply chains are agile and difficult for other big retailers to duplicate.

The existing rivals of Whole Foods Market are primarily Trader Joe’s, Kroger, Wegman’s, Walmart, and Safeway. However, Whole Foods Market has a specific niche and caters to a particular clientele attempting to increase customer loyalty, as it focuses on carrying natural and organic foods and is considered a premium brand upscale grocery store. The principal competitor of Whole Foods Market is Trader Joe’s, which has over 400 stores in North America and sells a substantial amount of organic food and products (they are not, however, exclusively organic and natural). Trader Joe’s stores are much smaller with less product selection

The cult following for Trader Joe’s distinguishes it from its competition. This cult is projected to grow as upcoming generations become more and more price sensitive. Loyal shoppers will camp out overnight for a grand opening or, in one example, write 50 letters to the headquarters pleading for a store opening in their state. This is surprising because their target shopper, Millennials, “show little retailer loyalty” when it comes to where they get their groceries. Trader Joe’s has obtained this loyalty through their Every Day Low Pricing Strategy, constantly changing inventories, and superb store environments.

Whole Foods Market was founded 1980 in Austin, Texas by three businessmen who felt that the natural food industry was ready for a supermarket setup. Two separate individual companies, Safer Way Natural Foods and Clarksville Natural Grocery, formed Whole Foods Market. After 27 years of operation, the company has come a long way. Today Whole Foods Market is the leading retailer of natural and organic foods, with 194 stores/locations in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada (wholefoodsmarket.com). The company has been in the Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work for" every year since the list was made up in 1998 (2007 ranked 5th). The cofounder and CEO, John

Trader Joe's prides itself on its thriftiness and cost-saving measures, proclaiming if they save a penny, you the customer saves a penny. Trader Joe’s demonstrates the importance of each responsibility in the management process by taking a simple approach to a complex process. Trader Joes’ buyers search out tasty, unusual foods from all around the world, they contract directly with manufacturers, they label each product under one of several catchy house brands; and, maintain a small stock, making each product fight for its place on the shelf. Trader Joe’s maintains the connection to the customer by bringing in 10 to 15 new products each week and the company maintains a strict "one in, one out" policy. Items

Analysts who study specialty grocer TRADER JOE'S attribute the company's financial success to the canny use of private labels, direct deals with producers and very compact stores (Speizer, 2004). Trader Joe’s is known for their critical standards of hiring their employees. Trader Joe’s customer service holds some superiority over other small grocery stores as they focus on that one important standard of their

The Drugstore retail industry is a $31.4 Billion industry across Canada and continues to grow steadily (Industry Canada, 2015). There are many competitors in the drugstore retail market in Canada both small and large. With the entrance of large American companies such as Walmart and even their very own parent company Loblaw’s, Shoppers has been forced to be at the top of their game to stay ahead in the drug retail market. The implementation of a produce section in select locations across Canada is one of the many ways that shoppers has been adapting to this competitive industry. Due to this adaptation, the company has opened itself to a whole new group of competitors from convenience store to grocery stores. Shoppers Drug Mart tackles this competition by differentiating itself in the market by offering “prestige products” (Kwon, N. 2013) and convenience that competitors do not offer. (Our Company, 2015)

Whole Food’s competitive advantage was no longer good enough sustain profitability and to fend off the “newbies” who flooded the market with cheaper substitutes. Inevitably, the increase in supply of organic food eroded at Whole Food’s profits and customer base. Whole Foods struggled to keep their customers who migrated to competitors that offered lower prices. When Whole Food realized that their biggest issue was high product prices, they attempted to remedy the problem by attempting various cost-cutting approaches which includes laying-off employees and closing down low performing stores. Unfortunately, their effort to remain relevant and to compensate for their market-share loses didn’t avail much. What Whole Foods needed was a new strategy and new advantage that will once again set this grocery giant apart and bring back profitability. These two were somewhat realized in the sale to Amazon. First, the sale the largest online retailer was a way for Whole Foods to expand its customer base and to further its mission of supplying healthy products at a much cheaper

Coke was invented by Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist and his three-legged brass pot all the way back in 1886; by 1985 Coke was closing in fast on its centennial anniversary. (Cook, 2002) Coke along with the legendary chairman Roberto C. Goizueta had witnessed a remarkable set of accomplishments during the 1980's. There were some creeping problems, however. The 87-year old rivalry between Coca-Cola, the

From a modern marketing point of view, grocery business and its stores are in “maturity and saturated stage” of the market-product life cycle. The aging of the baby boomer generation and the rising trend of healthy organic foods made way for Trader Joe’s, a less traditional grocery store with many more “hip” brands and innovations. Trader Joe’s is a fascinating company. It is privately owned and a sassy young company. It started off modestly with few small convenience stores in Pasadena, California. Trader Joe’s were differentiated from the local grocery stores with its tropical theme and its “exclusive” business style (naming the store

First, Trader Joe has invested in leadership that is continuous, based on the tested-proven mechanisms of managing the market. Starting as small merchandise, it has expanded rapidly right from being a small supermarket to become a large enterprise that covers a wide market in the United States of America. It has expanded to cover most parts of the Midwest by opening stores in Chicago and Manhattan among others. Its strategy is simply to expand

The history of Coca Cola dates all the way back to 1886 when John Pemberton, a pharmacist that studied medicine and pharmaceuticals at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, stumbled upon a taste bud enchanting drink that is well known today as Coca Cola. Pemberton’s preference was medical chemistry rather than regular medicine which explained his many attempts on trying to create a successful medicinal beverage. He created the syrup and took it to his neighborhood pharmacy where he got it carbonated. Then he took it to his partner/book keeper, Frank M. Robinson, where they came up with the name Coca Cola and got the drink established.

In the city of Atlanta, in 1886 the world was forever changed by one individual. Dr. John S. Pemberton articulated a syrup that when combined with carbonated water became the world’s leading beverage Coca-Cola. Frank M. Roberson, Dr. Pemberton’s bookkeeper and partner named the beverage. In addition, he is credited with writing out the Coca-Cola logo in his handwriting which was trademarked and is still used today (About Us Coca-Cola History, n.d.). On August 16, 1888, Dr. Pemberton passed away from cancer only five months after filing a petition for incorporation of Coca-Cola Company (King & Dobbs, 2015).

The history of Trader Joe’s beings in 1958 when it was initially known as Pronto Markets. Pronto Markets started as a few national chain of convenience stores created by Joe Coulombe. After a few years of running the convenience stores, Coulombe came to the realization that Pronto Markets had too much competition from other big established convenience stores, like 7-11, to compete successfully. Coulombe decided to shift his concept and came up with Trader Joe’s in 1967.