Very Interesting Read on Trader Joe's

I visited TJ's for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Loved it. Their hummus was fantastic, and I'm looking forward to going back. My other close-by options are Wal-Mart and Food Lion, both of which I loathe. There's a Lowe's Food I've never been in a bit further down the road and a Harris-Teeter somewhere around here. But TJ is close and cheap, and it was clean and appeared to be yuppie-free.

I will second whoever gave the shoutout to Central Market earlier in the thread. One of the things I loved about where I lived in Austin was close proximity to both a Whole Foods and (a bit futher) Central Market. At one point, I also lived near an HEB with an AMAZING kosher section, which I thought was absolutely fantastic.

 

Some joys in life are worth a whole 90 cents a day. Coffee is one of them, in my book.

 

Hank, not anymore than most grocery stores. We go to the one in Royal Oak mostly but there also is one in Grosse Pointe.

 

Northville, Farmington Hills -- but that's probably a little bit west for your tastes.

 

Yeah, trying to keep my carbon footprint as low as possible!

 

Anyone ever been to Stew Leonard's? Give me that over Trader Joe's any day.

Count me among the Wegman's lovers, though. Grew up in Syracuse and there were three right in my hometown. Didn't realize how lucky I was until I went to college and was stuck with only Shop Rite. When I moved to Pa. after college, Wegman's was about 45 minutes away, but I would occasionally splurge and drive up there for my weekly shopping.

 

I've been to Tom Leonard's Farmer's Market, started by the son of Stew. It's not bad.

 

I had a very SportsJournalists.com influenced day today.

I picked up my new passport in the morning so I can attend the Toronto International Film Festival.

I had lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings.

I stopped by Trader Joe's on the way home.

 

Let me tell you my Trader Joe's story. It will open your eyes to what makes this place tick... and why I'll be a lifelong customer.

In college, I had a TJ's two miles up the road, which made beer runs and backing up the truck for their underrated frozen foods that much easier.

So fast-forward six years and three jobs later and I'm living in my current city -- a city where the closest TJ's at the time was 45 miles away. It became a crusade among the residents to get one up in our area -- if for no other reason than to validate our existence as more than just a bunch of dumb hicks.

Whenever me and Mrs. Birdscribe were in that city for whatever reason, TJ's was a necessary final stop. So one day, we're there with Little Bird in his stroller and we're loading up our customary $90-$100 of purchases. I write a check and show the clerk my ID, telling him -- as I always did -- that they need to open a TJ's in our city.

"Oh, those aren't our type of people," he breezily said, missing the irony that at that moment, "that type of person" was spending $100 in your store.

I thought Mrs. Birdscribe was going to have an aneurysm in the car.

I got home, unloaded the items, called the store back to find out the name of the manager and headed to my computer, whereupon I wrote the Shakespeare of poison pen letters, taking pains to send a copy to the manager, the president of the company and the VP of communications.

This was on a Sunday. On Tuesday, the store manager calls me at home, apologizing up one side and down the other, telling me this employee "was taken care of" and assuring me my business was always welcome.

I didn't have time to fully ponder the Gambinoesque tone to this message, because the next day, Mrs. Birdscribe calls me at work telilng me she got home to "a huge flower display and gift basket..." courtesy of TJ's. Their corporate office sent it to us, with a nice card thanking us for their business.

You want to show me another business that would go to this trouble over the casual idiocy of one of its drones? This was in 1994 and I remain amazed and impressed by the gesture to this day.

Within three years, we finally got one in our area. I remain genetically incapable of entering one without leaving $50 or more lighter. And because of that experience above, I've never had a case of buyer's remorse. Ever.

 

Too many retailers (& other businesses) don't realize how by just handling a problem well, you can gain a customer for life.

Instead of turning someone off, you make someone like Birdscribe a brand ambassador.

Well done by Trader Joe's.

 

Bird, you shoulda gone into PR .... oh yeah, you did.