Brand names used to be important. I don't mean buying Chanel or Dolce&Gabbana just because they are expensive. I mean the trust in the brand names that our parents and grandparents and even great-grandparents relied on.
How my grandmother would only ever use Red Hot, hot sauce. Not because it was the best or the cheapest brand but because it was the brand she had always used and trusted. Or my mother only ever buying Tide with Bleach (sometimes bleach alternative) and Heinz Ketchup, just because.
Nowadays cheap and convenient have overshadowed trust and loyalty and mostly because that's not important to people anymore. When I go shopping my only demand is that the item is the cheapest for what I need. Take Facebook and Walmart, two big name companies I mention often because they are always in the news. They are usually in the news because of some infraction on user privacy or worker's rights. Yet, people continue to add friends and personal content on Facebook and continue to shop cheaply at Walmart. It is an interesting trend.
However, there is one company in the retail community that is gaining attention (I just read an article about them on finance.yahoo.com). This company attracts customers based on those old-school ideals. Good old Trader Joe's.
I never would have known what Trader Joe's was or what it sold if my sister didn't get a job there. She was always going on and on about its dried banana slices or chocolate-peppermint bark or flaxseed cranberry waffles and how they were all "so good." It intrigued me that she was so committed (she'd hang around there after work and even on her days off and help people!) to an entry-level cashier job. She did eventually became a manager but I was still amazed.
After I tried the banana slices (they were "so good") I had to see this place for myself. I mean, the person who thought of taking the sweet goodness of bananas and drying them was a genius! It was definitely her kind of place. I agree with the finance.yahoo.com article fully in this respect.
All the people who worked there were these goofy, freaky, quirky, kind of people. Honestly, I thought they were just hanging out and getting paid for it. What impressed me about the whole experience is that the people who worked there were visible. It was hard to miss them with their loud uniforms of Hawaiian t-shirts. But what I mean is that I didn't have to hunt them down. The opposite was true. They laughed and joked with each other and genuinely seemed like they wanted to be there--no blank stares after 12-hour shifts.
Trader Joe's has what most retailers either don't have, don't care about, or are struggling to find (i.e. Burger King's whopper bar): personality. They aim to attract a certain kind of person with their unique fare. They sell things you can't even find at Whole Foods. Every employee adds something to the place and every product gives it a "diamond in the rough" feel.
Not only that but it's semi-exclusive, something everyone loves. It doesn't have a million branches. They are selective and methodical and that adds to their success. I'm now located in Spain but my sister still ships me my supply of their famous boxed cornbread, specialty chai teas and seasonal Christmas goodies.
Everyone has a favorite Trader Joe's product. What's yours?
By: Samantha Taylor
How my grandmother would only ever use Red Hot, hot sauce. Not because it was the best or the cheapest brand but because it was the brand she had always used and trusted. Or my mother only ever buying Tide with Bleach (sometimes bleach alternative) and Heinz Ketchup, just because.
Nowadays cheap and convenient have overshadowed trust and loyalty and mostly because that's not important to people anymore. When I go shopping my only demand is that the item is the cheapest for what I need. Take Facebook and Walmart, two big name companies I mention often because they are always in the news. They are usually in the news because of some infraction on user privacy or worker's rights. Yet, people continue to add friends and personal content on Facebook and continue to shop cheaply at Walmart. It is an interesting trend.
However, there is one company in the retail community that is gaining attention (I just read an article about them on finance.yahoo.com). This company attracts customers based on those old-school ideals. Good old Trader Joe's.
I never would have known what Trader Joe's was or what it sold if my sister didn't get a job there. She was always going on and on about its dried banana slices or chocolate-peppermint bark or flaxseed cranberry waffles and how they were all "so good." It intrigued me that she was so committed (she'd hang around there after work and even on her days off and help people!) to an entry-level cashier job. She did eventually became a manager but I was still amazed.
After I tried the banana slices (they were "so good") I had to see this place for myself. I mean, the person who thought of taking the sweet goodness of bananas and drying them was a genius! It was definitely her kind of place. I agree with the finance.yahoo.com article fully in this respect.
All the people who worked there were these goofy, freaky, quirky, kind of people. Honestly, I thought they were just hanging out and getting paid for it. What impressed me about the whole experience is that the people who worked there were visible. It was hard to miss them with their loud uniforms of Hawaiian t-shirts. But what I mean is that I didn't have to hunt them down. The opposite was true. They laughed and joked with each other and genuinely seemed like they wanted to be there--no blank stares after 12-hour shifts.
Trader Joe's has what most retailers either don't have, don't care about, or are struggling to find (i.e. Burger King's whopper bar): personality. They aim to attract a certain kind of person with their unique fare. They sell things you can't even find at Whole Foods. Every employee adds something to the place and every product gives it a "diamond in the rough" feel.
Not only that but it's semi-exclusive, something everyone loves. It doesn't have a million branches. They are selective and methodical and that adds to their success. I'm now located in Spain but my sister still ships me my supply of their famous boxed cornbread, specialty chai teas and seasonal Christmas goodies.
Everyone has a favorite Trader Joe's product. What's yours?
By: Samantha Taylor
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