Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Stil…

Time and again I am asked why no one has successfully replicated Trader Joe’s. The answer is that no one has been willing to pay the wages and benefits, and thereby attract—and keep—the quality of people who work at Trader Joe’s. My standard was simple: the average full-time employee in the stores would make the median family income for California.

I want to brag about something here: in thirty years we never had a layoff of full-time employees. Seasonal swings in business were handled with overtime pay to full-time employees, and by adjusting part-time hours. The stability of full-time employment at Trader Joe’s was due in part to caution in opening new stores, and insisting on high-volume s

One of my grand objectives in Five Year Plan ’77 was to eliminate all outsiders from our stores and to halt all direct store deliveries. This was one of the most radical features of Trader Joe’s, vis-a-vis the rest of the grocery industry.