- These are 10 shopping secrets tied to Trader Joe's.
And if you watch this video,
this is how to make sure you do not overspend
at what could be one of your favorite stores.
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I'm tackling Trader Joe's today.
I just did an insight piece tied to ALDI,
and I've handled Costco,
what you don't wanna buy at Walmart,
all of these fixtures of the channel.
So thank you so much for coming back.
I wanna remind you, guys,
that before we get to these 10 shopping secrets,
all of your daily deals are waiting for you right now
on MattsDailyDeals.com.
I do use affiliate links
which means I benefit monetarily
if you're kind enough to use one of my links.
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I found a great deal on that.
The first way that Trader Joe's
gets you to spend more money,
which is also something that you should be cognizant of,
it's the freezer aisle.
And I'm gonna actually take you inside a store,
so you can see specifically what I'm talking about.
When you shop at Trader Joe's,
you're going to notice that they do not have glass doors
where they encase all of their frozen foods.
This encourages people like you
to interact with their food, pick up other products,
and you are also being welcomed into the experience,
in a very different way.
When you shop at a typical grocery store,
think about your frozen shopping food experience.
The aisles are a little bit colder,
you make your way in, you dart right out,
and you don't always take a chance
to look at what's around you.
At Trader Joe's,
specifically with these bins that are open,
it's a little bit less cold,
you may be more likely to spend more time in there.
And a lot of people will actually pick up different products
and interact with them.
That might be something you've done before.
And I wanna remind you, guys,
that is an insider shopping secret
tied to Trader Joe's management system,
where they know they may be able to entice you
with other products that you may end up purchasing.
Savings secret number two,
you are not always saving money
when it comes to these really unique frozen foods,
other product concoctions, and Trader Joe's specialty items,
because they do all the research
in terms of what's trending.
Trader Joe's spends a vast amount of research and time
tied to looking at what trends in different food groups,
from places like DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats,
and all of those favorite products
that might include things like kale gnocchi,
cauliflower gnocchi, chicken wings,
chicken burritos, enchiladas.
If you actually do a price-by-price comparison
on some of these frozen foods
and some of these refrigerator items that are prepackaged,
the per cost unit is the exact same
of what you'd be paying for in a restaurant
or through delivery.
So I would just recommend that you be cognizant of that,
although there is an incredible amount of high quality
tied to the foods sold at Trader Joe's.
The third shopping secret that you should be aware of
when you are at Trader Joe's
is your ability to compare prices no longer exists
because stores are stocked with more than 80%
of Trader Joe's brands.
Now this is the same shopping tactic
that's employed by warehouse clubs,
particularly Costco, right?
The Kirkland Signature brand.
Awesome.
You shop for your favorite brands at Trader Joe's
and you're going to do very well
in terms of product quality.
With that though, you can't cross-compare.
A prime example would be the cereal aisle.
You're not going to find
your typical Cheerios and Frosted Flakes,
or your oatmeal.
You're going to find brands that represent the high quality
that Trader Joe imparts to the customer.
But with that being said,
it is not possible to do a price comparison.
It's not easy to open up an app.
It's not easy to really do anything
other than look at what's in front of you,
decide how tantalizing those offers are,
and that will determine
what you take home in your shopping bag.
Now when it comes to your shopping bag,
there's a whole psychology tied to that
which I'm going to explore in savings secret number 10.
But before we get there, of course,
it's savings secret number four,
and that is the power of the bin.
When Trader Joe's really wants to move something,
if something's not selling on a particular store shelf,
it is moved to end caps and placed in boxes.
Why?
Well it's the same type of warehouse feel
that Sam's Club and BJ's and Costco try to recreate.
The average human shopper
is more likely to buy something from a box,
because for whatever reason,
as it caters to our psyche,
we believe that it has just come off a truck.
It's either fresh
or it's something that hasn't been unpacked yet.
And we are, in fact,
getting some type of warehouse price on it.
That's how Trader Joe's saves money.
It's not how we save money.
When Trader Joe's just puts an item into a box,
or it just takes a box,
specifically from a distribution system,
and puts it onto a store floor,
they're cutting down on the middleman or middlewoman,
and with that, they save money.
Yes, it is true at Trader Joe's,
that a lot of those savings
are passed along to the customer,
but sometimes they just wanna move something.
So sometimes if you wonder
why you might see peaches and cream cookies,
all of a sudden in a box,
but they were in a store shelf several days before,
it may be a mechanism just to move product stock.
The fifth shopping secret
you should be aware of for Trader Joe's,
is they do more behind-the-scenes taste testing
on a lot of their products than any other major retailer,
specifically groceries.
And although ALDI does a lot of this,
and they have some similar roots between the two stores,
it's important to know,
that when you see things
like purple yam-flavored ice cream,
or, or really, anything that you can drink in a latte form,
random combinations of flavors,
like dark pistachio coffee, and cowboy bark chocolate,
and pralines, and Thai tea mochi,
you are, in fact,
trying something that could be the next food trend.
If you watched one of the earlier secrets,
I said, they replicate a lot of the food trends,
that's true.
But Trader Joe's also is very creative
at inventing new combinations
which sometimes get repurposed in local restaurants
and then national chains,
and then passed along to the consumer,
but you are actually buying into something
that could be part of a bigger picture.
With that being said,
it's impossible to price-compare these products.
Just know the likelihood of these products tasting good
is a lot higher at a Trader Joe's facility
than many other competing national grocery store chains.
The sixth shopping secret that you should be aware of,
is you can actually predict sales at Trader Joe's
by looking at the recipe guides on their website.
So this is what I wanna show you.
If you look at the recipe guide on their website,
many of the recipes,
which kinda replicate
what you would see from a HelloFresh-type experience,
incorporate their various ingredients,
the loaded baked potatoes
have all specific things tied to their brands,
their amazing cheese.
All sorts of in-house brands that you can take advantage of
that are then put into these amazing amalgamations.
If you are wondering what may be at its lowest price
for a particular week,
a lot of my research has concluded
that they feature their recipes for products that are timely
well before the actual pricing is done for a store.
I don't know why I put pricing in quotations, in air quotes.
That was weird.
But really, what I'm trying to tell you
is you are likely to find your best value
by shopping the recipe guide on the Trader Joe's website,
and that can be done ahead of time.
I'm going to address their pricing structure
a little bit more
in insider secret number nine.
But before we get there,
we have insider secret number seven.
If you've ever shopped at a Trader Joe's,
you're going to notice very quickly,
that for whatever reason,
the employees there are in better moods
and more helpful,
than really, any grocery store you could possibly shop at.
I've noticed a little bit,
in terms of my testing at Whole Foods,
although I'm not enamored with their prices by any means,
that that occurs there.
But at Trader Joe's, with their rock-bottom prices,
if you are looking for a specific product,
a team member will come right out
from whatever they're doing.
They will walk you over to the shelf,
and they will sometimes spend between one and three minutes
discussing it with you.
Folks, this is a sales tactic.
They are nice, they are kind,
and they're a generally happy group of people
but we all have things going on in our own lives.
The reason this keeps occurring
is Trader Joe's has done their research
and you are more likely
to not only purchase the product you're looking for,
but often, in that conversation,
your interest may be piqued about something else.
You might be looking for an olive oil,
the sales individual might ask you
if you've tried their balsamic vinegar.
You might be looking for a truffle oil
and they might alert you
to a really good pesto and pasta combination
that can go with that.
How do I know?
It's happened to me almost every time.
And yes, I don't have many friends,
and yes, I am outgoing,
and yes, I sometimes enjoy those conversations.
But that's why they happen.
And I've spoken to several people
on the inside of the grocery industry
who have at least agreed with me on that point.
The eighth shopping secret tied to Trader Joe's
is actually all about timing.
Many grocery stores will circulate their best deals
and their most aggressive discounts
in the middle of the month.
It used to be the first of the month,
then it was the end of the month,
for whatever reason,
it's mostly the middle of the month
where a lot of people have that disposable income,
and then they budget it for their next paycheck.
And for whatever reason,
that's when they are targeted.
Trader Joe's has a consistent pricing
which begins at the end of the month
and it rolls into the third week,
and then at the third week, at the end of the month,
they bring out some of their new offerings.
Another thing that I wanna mention is,
if you are in a neighborhood or a community
where different stores are opening,
and Trader Joe's is aggressively opening stores,
you would think that the best promotions
are offered right when the store opens.
Not true.
Trader Joe's has a very good word-of-mouth network,
where they rely upon very little advertising,
compared to your traditional grocery store chains.
They realize that people will continue to talk about recipes
and outings and where they're going.
And with that being said,
one month after a store opens
is when I actually see some of the better promotions,
when that word-of-mouth and that momentum
maybe slows down after a store first opens.
So if you're looking to save big
and stock up for any reason,
make sure that you count a full month after the store opens.
That's when I have seen
the most appealing offers presented to shoppers.
The ninth shopping secret to keep in mind,
is that Trader Joe's does not always have the lowest price.
And it's similar to the Best Buy analogy
where if you go into the store
and you grab an amazing deal on a TV,
chances are, they've placed the HDMI
or the AV cables at their highest price, beside that TV.
Now with that being said,
Kiplinger actually did an interesting breakdown
and they compared it to ALDI,
which I realize might be an unfair comparison,
based on the fact that they share similar roots.
But the skim milk rang up for $1.25 at ALDI,
and the same-size milk carton was 1.79 at Trader Joe's.
You can say that's not a great example.
But at Whole Foods,
which I would not walk into if I don't have to,
one dozen extra large brown eggs are $4.19,
and the same carton was 30 cents more at Trader Joe's.
And that is some of the pricing that I have seen.
In terms of other tactics,
Trader Joe's will actually discount
as much as they possibly can,
assuming you will buy more
and treat it almost like a warehouse club.
And I've seen that on household staples.
So for things that you are typically buying in bulk,
Trader Joe's goes as low as you can.
They count on the fact that with less selection
and they're in-house brands,
you're going to stand in front of the shelf,
see the great price,
and then stock your shopping cart,
buying more from them
than you would ever buy from a traditional grocery store,
just based on how they cater to that sensation.
When I speak to people
about their Trader Joe shopping experience,
more people talk about how it feels,
which is a very strange thing for a grocery store, right?
A lot of people talk about the,
the taste of the food.
But Trader Joe's brings a little bit of an experience in,
which brings me to shopping secret number 10,
which is Trader Joe's
very happily lets you stand in line upon check out
for two very good reasons.
At your typical other grocery stores,
it's all about convenience.
There's kiosk, there's a way to get in and get out.
Trader Joe's almost wants to program you to understand,
that when you go there, it's an outing,
it's a food odyssey, it's an experience,
and you're not gonna get out quickly.
So what do you do when you're not gonna get out quickly?
Well, you take your time on all of the products.
In the freezer aisle,
which was that shopping secret number one,
they know that you might look at one other thing,
put something else into your cart.
You already know
you're gonna be waiting for 15 minutes to check out.
That might actually lead you to spend more money
because you take your time going through the store.
And you're looking at new products and new flavors.
And it's sort of the opposite of the Amazon experience
where you know what you want, you go,
you grab it, you check out, and then you're done.
That's not what happens at Trader Joe's.
And that might be why you shop there
and why you like it most.
Now if you have a shopping secret, let me know.
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