
Joe Cool – Why isn’t Trader Joe’s on social media? - chippy
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/joe-cool/
======
ideonexus
> _Social-media messaging would only muddle the company’s effort to sell its
> massively popular corporate brand as a neighborhood secret._

I think this is key. Being "local" is important. I saw this in the
comic/gaming shop I volunteered in. We had a web presence and facebook page,
but no one used them except for memes and news links. The money was made with
people coming into the store and impulse-spending during a Friday Night Magic
tournament or RPG sessions. Conversations and real-life interactions with
people are why these shops have survived the move to online and big-box outlet
stores.

I've recently become aware of how problematic the lack of "local" news is in
my community. Our local papers have vanished, so that we rely on a patchwork
of blogs and government facebook pages to know what's going on--but those get
drowned out in the ocean of other national-news posts and facebook filters. My
wife and I have made it a point to always attend our town hall meetings each
month so we can know what's going on in our neighborhood. Our local government
is getting away with some pretty outrageous things now because social media
fails to inform local citizens about what's going on. People have strong
opinions about national politics, but have no idea how their local politicians
are bringing down their quality of life.

Local is important, it's what's going on around our immediate area and it's
where we can make the biggest difference in the world. Unfortunately, the
World Wide Web has us so focused on global oftentimes that we are ceding our
localities to other to our own detriment.

~~~
rdtsc
We shop there. I obviously don't think it is local. I've been to huge Trade
Joes with large multistory parking garages nearby (in LA), I've been to them
in other cities, by where I live etc. What they have going for them in an
image of a healthy, wholesome, quality foods for reasonable prices. I think
initially they started to appeal to the Whole Foods crowd who couldn't quite
afford the prices.

It is interesting that a lot of the food at TJs is not organic. But by clever
marketing, using brown paper bags, imagery/graphics with a turn of the century
feel to them, they impart the idea that there they are healthy, natural and
good for you. In reality it probably is not no better or worse than the food
you'd get a Kroger, Giant, Safeway or other such traditional grocery stores.

~~~
bunnymancer
TJs is a blessing for a vegetarian though, as they have a variety of options
places like Target and GEagle doesn't offer.

Even more so when you're in Ohio...

~~~
jamisteven
People buy groceries at target? wtf

~~~
softawre
My wife shops there so she doesn't have to go to Walmart.

~~~
jzymbaluk
Isn't that Target's slogan? "Target: It's not Wal-Mart!"

------
mapgrep
This piece seems to miss a lot of basic info about Trader Joe's, starting with
the supply chain. Trader Joe's is basically a direct discount operation, like
Wal Mart but with two crucial differences: It deals in spoilable goods and
_relabels upmarket products as generic_.

If you live in an area with a TJ's and least one high quality artisanal baker,
for example, there is a very good chance the bread stocked at Trader's is from
the high end baker but covertly rebranded as generic. If you pick up some
well-aged Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano at $10 or $12/lb, I guarantee you it was
not curated by some Trader Joe's affineur in Europe but by an Italian
cheesemaker that normally sells at closer to $18/lb and wants some marginal
revenue growth without diluting the original brand.

Another important question to ask is "Does Trader Joe's have sales or coupons
to promote" and the answer is "No." The company says on its website that it
considers sale "a four-letter word". The article spends all this time talking
about how discount grocery chain Aldi has a big social media presence without
noting that Aldi DOES have weekly sale specials to advertise on social media
(they traditionally use newspaper but seem to have some sales on Twitter now).
In this light the different social media strategies make sense.

Basically TJ does not have the usual retail things to gain through social
media but it DOES have things to lose (like questions/speculation on
identities of its covert generic conversion partners). Not to say they won't
ever do it but you have to look at specific possible motives instead of
intellectualized theories like "it seeks to generate brand loyalty through its
silence" (what?) and "Trader Joe’s is counting on capturing successive
generations of its target consumers by being the choice for no-choices"
(WHAT?).

~~~
DaveWalk
Excellent points: thanks for the cool splash of water on the article's
subjectivity. Trader Joe's marketing is what causes the author to say saying
something like "the lines and packed lots themselves can be reassuring, that
you have come to the right place."

But it's Trader Joe's business model that makes it come across as a "low-
priced gourmet-cum-health-foods store" (original owner's words). It doesn't
seem to me that social media has anything to do with it.

On a side note, does anyone actually think Trader Joe's "Frequent Flier"
handout is useful? It looks to me like an amateur, Microsoft Publisher-
designed handout. They could use some modernism in that department. Unless
it's ironically bad as the point?

~~~
mrspeaker
It's a great flyer... only one in my entire life I've ever read, then made a
point of buying one of the items the next time I went. I know it's fabricated
to feel neighbour-hood-y and quaint - but it worked. If it was "modernised" I
wouldn't have even picked it up.

~~~
CalRobert
It's good fun to read! It always reminds me of my favorite catalog from my
youth, American Science and Surplus. In fact, they'll still mail you a printed
catalog with hand-drawn illustrations and product descriptions sprinkled with
humor if you request one at sciplus.com

------
Aleman360
Why would you want your grocery store on social media? I don't understand the
world anymore.

~~~
roymurdock
This is explained in the article:

 _Aldi is happy to dole out recognition to individuals who want to engage with
it, playing the attention game where consumer praise is awarded with publicity
from the Aldi feed. The consumer endorses the brand, and in turn the brand
validates the consumer. The opportunities for this quasi-reciprocal
participation in brands is presumed to catalyze customer loyalty._

Some people like to share their appreciation through social media. It can also
be nice to know that the company that you patronize has responsive staff
monitoring public conversations to service your needs.

I think you can understand that, you just don't see the value in it, which is
fair enough because I don't either. That's probably one of the (subconscious)
reasons I shop at TJ's - decent food at a great price, and no marketing BS
that detracts from my experience with the brand.

~~~
EliRivers
Surely no marketing bullshit _is_ part of their marketing bullshit.

~~~
roymurdock
Well yes, the absence of something can be considered something in its own
right. There's probably a more eloquent way to put that but it escapes me at
the moment.

~~~
bad-joke
"Say little and do much." \- Pirkei Avot

------
padobson
The article starts off by saying that having too many choices can paralyze us,
increasing the fear that we will choose wrong.

I completely understand this from my own life, and I've found that good
categorization, rather than fewer choices, is the key to stopping the
paralysis.

Good categories, preferably on some sort of spectrum (from cheap to expensive,
from funny to tragic, from mild to spicy) allow me to do the equivalent of a
quick binary search in my head. I like my buffalo wings hot, so I'll
immediately gravitate to two or three choices on that end of the spectrum.
Grocery stores and restaurants should setup their shelving and menus,
respectively, to accomodate their customers in this.

~~~
CaptSpify
I've always been skeptical of the "Paradox of Choice". I'm not saying it's
bunk, but I don't see it in my own life. My only problem when choosing, is
when there is no list of differences easily available for the choice I have to
make. I wish I could apply an "online shopping filter" to real-world
situations: "give me mac and cheese" "OK, now, only ones with white cheddar"
"remove anything made by kraft", etc.

I guess you could say it's an interface issue.

~~~
cousin_it
> _" remove anything made by kraft"_

Oh, man. Story of my life: visit the US, go to a supermarket, grab a pack of
cheese, bring it to the hotel, put some in my mouth, spit it out, notice the
label: "cheese-like product made by kraft". Fly back to Europe, live happily
for a few months, forget everything, visit the US again, repeat.

~~~
mwfunk
This is clearly operator error. If you want good cheese, buy good cheese. If
you want to be a dumbass, buy random cheese from a random store and act
surprised when you get something unexpected.

~~~
cousin_it
In many other countries, including the country I live, buying random cheese
works as expected (i.e. I get cheese).

------
samsolomon
Trader Joe's reminds me of the specialty grocer in the small beach town I went
to as a child. They carried no brands and had a few local options for jam and
other things you'd buy. The company has been able to recreate that same feel,
but stock stores with well-selected generic food items (in non-generic
packaging).

I wonder how much of their success is built on the same nostalgia?

------
nkoren
Apropos of nothing: I moved to the UK eight years ago, and damn, I still miss
Trader Joe's. For the most part, I find mid-scale urban British grocery/retail
to be much better than its American counterpart (where the industry is too
focused on big-box suburban shopping, and to figure out how to do mid-
scale/urban right) -- but damn, Trader Joe's is really is the best.

I emailed them a few years ago asking them to expand to the UK. No reply.
Alas!

~~~
NLips
For a Brit who's never been to the USA, please can you explain the unique
(compared to UK supermarkets) factor(s) Trader Joe's has?

From elsewhere in the thread, I hear that they pretty much only sell their own
brand - but that alone would make them similar to Marks and Spencer.

~~~
gphil
From an American who's been to Trader Joe's a lot and a Marks and Spencer
grocery exactly once, I think they are pretty comparable except that the food
items are more aligned with their respective nation's typical dietary
preferences.

------
quadrangle
I went out of my way to contact Trader Joe's and let them know how happy I am
that they never have stupid discount sales, gimmicks, privacy-invading "member
cards" or all the other bullshit. I don't care that they are imperfect
otherwise. I get a better experience. The biggest concern I have about Trader
Joe's is that I can't 100% rely on them always staying this way, I can just
hope. I do wish they were a co-op though.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Definitely, I despise privacy invading tracking cards, and would rather have a
fair price than sales. Thankfully the Albertson's on our block stopped that
shit.

~~~
awqrre
Can't most stores track you just as easily with your credit card information?

~~~
mixmastamyk
Yes, though I normally use cash unless I've run out, small trips, instead of
large.

------
golergka
Interesting article, but makes me wonder: did it actually need this many word
to describe Trader Joe's strategy?

I mean, potential reader would already know half the stuff the writer was
going on about, from brands being on social media to the stereotype
description of "broke graduate student". Why waste reader's time on that?

------
Spooky23
I think a better question is "why is any grocery store on social media?"

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't want a friend at the grocery, just food. The
flyer in the Sunday paper is far better than any of the modern alternatives.

~~~
imgabe
If all the grocery stores moved onto facebook and stopped filling my real life
mailbox with flyers I throw immediately in the garbage, that would be great.

------
joe_momma
I can't wait for the thing/word that comes after social media. Please whatever
it is, someone usher that era in.

~~~
detaro
Seems to me like messaging could be it. All those "text us and we do X"
startups...

------
hannob
Large parts of the article circle around the idea of the "Paradox of Choice".
However this whole idea is based in very flaky research.

Usually some small scale studies with unreliable methodology are chosen to
back that up. Wikipedia mentions a meta analysis that looked at the issue and
came to the conclusion: "Although strong instances of choice overload have
been reported in the past, direct replications and the results of our meta-
analysis indicated that adverse effects due to an increase in the number of
choice options are not very robust: The overall effect size in the meta-
analysis was virtually zero." Source:
[http://www.scheibehenne.de/ScheibehenneGreifenederTodd2010.p...](http://www.scheibehenne.de/ScheibehenneGreifenederTodd2010.pdf)

I haven't read the whole metaanalysis, but that should raise some healthy
scepticism about the whole concept.

------
Zpalmtree
I really love how that website utilized a whole 1/5th of my horizontal
space...

As others have said, I don't really want grocery stores on social media, we
have enough ads already.

------
SeanLuke
This article goes on about Trader Joe's "cousin" Aldi USA, seemingly
misunderstanding that the two companies do not share a parent.

~~~
elthran
Do you share a parent with your cousin?

~~~
SeanLuke
Hey, that's personal, bub.

I shouldn't have said "parent": I assumed, and still assume, that the author
was mixing up Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud. As far as I understand it, Trader Joe's
and Aldi USA are not cousins: they unrelated and competing businesses with no
ownership in common. Thinking Aldi Nord and Sud are the same company is a
_major_ blunder for someone presuming to pontificate on Trader Joe's.

~~~
germanier
To be fair both Aldis have almost the same strategy and work closely together.
So it's logical to ask why they operate differently in this regard.

------
headShrinker
Simply put: Because my mom was excited about the store before I was... It's
simply not cool to shop there.

------
donretag
"there is no direct way to complain to the company"

Complaining on Twitter is one of the reasons why I do not use it and was the
first thing the jumped to my head when I read the title. I cannot stand whiny
people (am I whining right now? :)) or attention seekers, so I would be
hesitant to put any business on Twitter/social media.

~~~
Animats
Sure there is. They have a "contact us" page on their web site, and store
phone numbers.

------
meggar
Trader Joe's used to have a fun iOS app with animations and new product info.

------
dec0dedab0de
Aldis does though, that's interesting.

------
peter303
TJ has a Silicon Valley connection. It was started by a Stanford grad, before
sold to a German grocery chain.

------
groceryshiopper
Did I just read an ad for TJs?

------
meeper16
Because there are individuals and companies that simply do not benefit from
"social media". They do however benefit from being in Google's search index.

~~~
forgotAgain
Yep, type in Trader Joe's and get a map to the nearest direction. Excellent
outcome for a retail establishment.

