Quirky Trader Joe's draws shoppers for deals on fine food, wines
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"She took me to Trader Joe's to shop for a big dinner we were planning and I went nuts: such great stuff at such great prices," Clifford recalls.
After that, her annual California jaunts always included a pilgrimage to Trader Joe's. She'd return to Seattle with a suitcase full of wine, chocolate, bean dip, olives, salsa, pasta, Thai soups and tubs of chocolate-covered peanuts.
The interstate hauling ended for Clifford in 1995 when Trader Joe's opened a store in Bellevue, hard on the heels of a flock of Californians migrating to the shores of Puget Sound. Today Trader Joe's has nine stores stretching from Everett to Burien, from Queen Anne to Kirkland. A 10th will open this summer on Capitol Hill, and smart money says it won't be the last.
Seattleites are notoriously reticent about welcoming out-of-town chains, but many are embracing Trader Joe's, and not just for those famously inexpensive Charles Shaw wines, known locally as "three-buck Chuck." We thought we'd take a look at who shops at Trader Joe's and why.
Trader Joe's shoppers
Scarborough Data, a market research firm, profiles the typical Trader Joe's shopper as a college-educated, white homeowner with a median age of 44 and a median household income of $64,000. Almost evenly divided among married people and singles, females and males, two-thirds have no kids at home.
According to Pat St. John, Trader Joe's vice president for marketing, the company's target customer is a cost-conscious, health-conscious label-reader who is not tied to national brand names. Company surveys have found that many of them are well-traveled and looking to replicate foods they have enjoyed elsewhere.
Anecdotal information gleaned informally from Trader Joe's shoppers reveals several sometimes overlapping types: There's the frugal foodie looking for the next new thing; the iconoclast who resents "customer loyalty cards" and dislikes big-box retailers; the health-conscious, ecologically sensitive parent seeking organic and pesticide-free foods, environmentally friendly cleaning supplies and wholesome snacks; child-free working couples and singles who favor the convenience foods packaged just right for one or two; and a whole lot of people who like to indulge in luxuries like flowers, candy, cheese, wine and Greek yogurt without signing over their paycheck.
"It's fast food without the guilt," says Carlene Larsson, who stocks up on frozen rice bowls and stir-fry veggies for her husband and teenage son to make when she's not home to cook.
Patsy Jacoy shops at Albertson's and Safeway but goes to Trader Joe's once a week for granola, dairy products, meatballs, simmer sauces, snack items and pasta. "They have great prices and great quality, plus items that make a dinner extra-special with no effort on my part," she says.
A fringe player
Few people do all their grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, but survey results suggest many do their fill-in shopping there. While almost 17 percent of shoppers surveyed here last year by Scarborough Data said they had shopped at Trader Joe's in the past week, only 2 percent said it's the store they shop at most often. Still, that 2 percent was enough to rank it in the Scarborough survey as the sixth-most frequently shopped grocery store in the area. (See chart.)
"Consumers have taken on shopping at Trader Joe's without discarding traditional stores," observes Bert Hambleton of Hambleton Resources, a marketing consulting firm specializing in retail grocery.
Like Costco and Whole Foods, Trader Joe's is a fringe player and proud of it. "We are not trying to be everything to everybody," St. John says.
People don't go to Trader Joe's for things like toilet paper, ketchup or Campbell's soup; they go for add-ons or are treasure hunting, says Hambleton. But they don't view shopping there as grocery shopping, even though they're buying food. "It's a new kind of grocery format that is taking a key competitive share of the grocery business," he says.
Building a store brand
Trader Joe's began in Los Angeles as Pronto Markets in 1958. Founder Joe Coulombe changed the name and format in 1967 by expanding into gourmet food and wines. Sales of the privately held company are estimated at more than $2 billion annually. The chain has more than 200 stores in 17 states.
Trader's Joe's keeps prices down and profits up through private labeling. The Trader Joe's brand accounts for as much as 85 percent of their non-alcoholic products, according to St. John. The mix constantly changes because the stores are small and space is at a premium. If a product doesn't move well, it's phased out pretty quickly, she says.
"Every store makes more money on store brands," notes Hambleton. "Trader Joe's has made their store brands highly desirable; they market by creating an aura of exclusivity about their finds."
The company's newsletter and Web site read like a gastronomic J. Peterman catalog, creating an image of intrepid buyers traversing the globe foraging for new taste treats. For a store that eschews brand names, there is a lot of product loyalty.
Drawing new customers
Word-of-mouth is often what brings new customers to Trader Joe's. Impromptu testimonials overheard in the aisles — and the store's promise of a refund if you don't like what you buy — help move things off the shelves.
Stacie McMillan had never shopped at Trader Joe's until a friend turned her on to the frozen French onion soup. Now she's a regular at the Lynnwood store and says her husband has become a Trader Joe's salsa-holic. She finds something new every time she goes. "I heard someone raving about the flaxseed and soy chips, which I never would have tried on my own. Now they are a staple in my pantry."
Meg Brunner heard about Trader Joe's from her 93-year-old great aunt who shopped there several times a week. Brunner and many of her colleagues used to buy lunch at City Greens, the independent deli/grocery store near their office. When it closed, they switched their allegiance to Trader Joe's in part because of its "neighborhood atmosphere."
Not everyone likes the stores' intimacy. They sometimes seem more like a mom-and-pop grocery than a supermarket, and the layout can be hard to navigate and checkout lines easily get congested.
But the cooking demonstrations and food sampling are popular features, and the cheerful, laid-back staff always seem to be having a good time.
The proliferation of Trader Joe's still hasn't gone far enough for Abbie Clifford, unfortunately. She now lives in Saudi Arabia, where her husband is on a work assignment. Once or twice a year she comes back to Seattle and always leaves with a suitcase full of goodies from Trader Joe's, which she can't get — at any price — in that part of the world.
Seattle Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.
Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com