Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

Discontinued Items?

They are actually By Design:

Creating ‘Surprise and Discovery’!

Blogger Bill Flagg has some amazingly informative info about Trader Joe’s. Like this fascinating tidbit:

Changing 1/4 of the selection each year creates surprise and discovery (difficult to do when thousands of shoppers complain about their favorite products being discontinued)

Like we used to say, “its not a bug, its a feature”

So doesn’t this mean something like 1,000 products a year can vanish ?! Morale: Be careful about falling in love with something…

Check out Bill Flagg’s, “Lessons From Trader Joe’s”. Great read!  http://billflagg.blogspot.com/2011/05/lessons-from-trader-joes.html

FROM TRADER JOE WEBSITE…..

Why does TJ’s frequently discontinue products?

Our mission is to bring you the best quality products at the best prices. To do this, we have to manage our store space well. Each of our products must “stand on its own,” meaning it must pay its own way. Each product passes certain criteria in order to earn its way onto our shelves – including a rigorous tasting panel.

There may be several factors that determine why we discontinue products:

• It may be a seasonal product – for example, strawberries, which are in season only specific times of the year.
• The gang way factor – because we introduce 10-15 new products a week, we have to eliminate 10-15 items in order to give our newest items a fair chance.
• The cost of producing the item may increase, which would in turn increase the cost to you – if the item is not a strong seller, we may choose to discontinue it.