Trader Joe's Business Analysis

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“Trader Joe's was acquired in 1979 by the Albrecht family of Germany, which owns and operates a discount food chain of 4,500 Aldi stores in Europe and parts of the central US. The seven values that form the foundation of everything that Trader Joe's does include: 1. integrity, 2. product-driven company, 3. produce wow customer experiences, 4. we hate bureaucracy, 5. Kaizen, 6. we do not do elaborate budgeting, and 7. treating the store as the brand. Though it has a fervently enthusiastic tan club of customers in a few big cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Boston, Trader Joe's is not yet well known nationally in the USA because most of its stores are in western states. In recent years, Trader Joe's has located about…show more content…
Trader Joe's differs from Whole Foods and other grocers in another way. Its stock is constantly changing as its buyers travel the globe looking for new and interesting products that can be brought back, packaged and sold profitably at a relatively low price (Speizer, 2004). Productivity is a measure of performance that indicates how many inputs it takes to produce or create an output (Williams, 2015). To make sure that workers keep up with the stock, stores hold weekly tastings for employees to sample the latest goods (Speizer, 2004). Operations management is managing the daily production of goods and service (Williams, 2015). "After the store closed, we would try everything from the wine to frozen pizza to candy," says Melody Derloshon, a former Trader Joe's stock clerk who worked in a Northern California store (Speizer, 2004). "It was like a buffet table." Workers also get a 10 percent store discount, which serves as both an added bonus and an inducement to keep employees acquainted with the products (Speizer, 2004). Trader Joe's workers give the impression that they enjoy being at the stores, which suggests to customers that they should get with it and have some fun, too (Speizer,…show more content…
(But) the glue that holds the system together is generous compensation (Speizer, 2004). Job postings indicate that part-time clerks earn from $8 to $12 an hour; Full-time employees, who typically work 47.5 hours a week, earn an average $40,150 in the first year, according to the company's postings (Speizer, 2004). That equals $16 an hour, well above the $12 average pay in the retail industry, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics figures (Speizer, 2004). Leadership is the process of influencing others to achieve group or organizational goals (Williams 2015). Equity theory says that people will be motivated at work when they perceive that they are being treated fairly (Williams 2015). These employees also earn an average annual bonus of $950 and $6,300 in retirement-plan contributions as well. It adds up to an average total package of $47,000 a year (Speizer,
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