Show notes
Trader Joe's breaks every rule of modern retail. They don't do e-commerce. They don't do delivery. No sales, coupons, or loyalty programs. They only stock 4,000 SKUs versus 50,000+ at normal supermarkets. Their parking lots are famously terrible and they're constantly out of your favorite items. Shoppers brave long lines and cramped aisles while overly-friendly employees in Hawaiian shirts try to chat them up.
Highlighted moments
7-Eleven and the whole convenience store genre served only the most basic needs of the most mindless demographics with cigarettes, Coca-Cola, milk, Budweiser, candy, bread, and eggs. Dimly, I saw an opportunity to differentiate ourselves radically from mainstream retailing to mainstream people.
“we prepared to marry the health food store to the liquor store. This concept obviously was founded in schizophrenia, but it occurred to me that people who really thought about what they ingested, whether they were wine connoisseurs or health food nuts, were basically on the same radar beam.”
“Not the winery. Separate, not the real estate, not the grapes, not the nothing. Ben, just the label, by an entity called Bronco Wines for $27,000.”
“the sales per square foot is estimated to be over $2,000 today. That is the single highest sales per foot of any grocery store and twice its nearest competitor in Whole Foods.”
Transcript
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