Inside Amazon's Push to Crack Trader Joe's--and Dominate Everything

[Zorro]

When Amazon was working on a new private-label food brand called Wickedly Prime, members of the team pitched management this vision for the brand: to replicate the top 200 items sold at Trader Joe’s, the grocery-store chain with a rabid fan following.

To help in its quest, the team recruited a senior manager from Trader Joe’s snack-foods business. The recruit wasn’t told specifically what she’d be working on when Amazon conducted her interview in 2015.

But during her first week she walked into a conference room at headquarters with brown paper covering the windows and door to ensure privacy, and she started piecing things together. The mysterious conference room was filled with boxes of Trader Joe’s snack foods piled high on shelves, which Amazon had bought up to study for its own brand. This alarmed the employee, who was eventually told she was hired to help create the product assortment for Wickedly Prime.

The problem was that Trader Joe’s secrets were well guarded. The grocer doesn’t offer online shopping, so there is less known about the company’s top sellers than about products sold by retailers that sell online, which have customer reviews. Much of what Trader Joe’s sells, it makes itself—interesting concoctions that fly off shelves, like cinnamon bun spread and rosemary croissant croutons. Amazon wasn’t sure exactly which 200 items to copy, but a manager on the team was determined that their new employee would help them figure that out.

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/amazon-the-everything-war-dana-mattioli-4966915d?st=vxghhoahike437s&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[gopiscrap]

1. fuck Amazon

[leftieNanner]

2. Yep

I never buy anything from them.

Truly NEVER.

[usonian]

3. Trader Joe's is a moving target. (and like Amazon, an enemy of labor)

Many great items at Trader Joe's are in-stock/out-of-stock day to day.

I knew someone who worked there and I was always interested in how inventory was maintained, though I don't think she knew the details. (I was researching simulation apps at the time).

The most vexing item for me has been the Sweetened Dried Orange Slices, which I am told are now out of season, but which showed or no-showed at seemingly random times, so I would hoard them, as other people probably did, making availability even worse.

So, I got out the dehydrator. Hint to Amazon: If you can make an identical item with steady supply, I'm in.

But my motto is (when I absolutely have to go there for an exclusive item) is

STUFF COMES AND GOES AT TRADER JOE'S.

I curtailed my shopping there by some 90% when I heard about their animosity to labor.
GO OMAHA STEVE!

[LisaM]

4. I shopped at Trader Joe's exactly once, maybe 25 years ago.

A coworker had come in with arms full of fresh herbs, too many for her to use up, and handed them out to all of us; she'd apparently gotten them all at Trader Joe's for some incredibly low price. So I went into our Trader Joe's looking for something similar and there was nothing remotely like that on the shelves. It bugged me and I never went back. (I don't remember if I even bought anything, probably some token item because I don't like to go into a store and not at least grab one little thing).

But not knowing what they have is unhelpful.

I don't shop at Amazon either and I gave up Whole Foods once Amazon bought them.

[kimbutgar]

6. I used to love sweetened dried lemon slices but they discontinued them

How do you dehydrate them?

[usonian]

7. I got a Nesco dehydrator, but they are basically all the same (either passive and heated/air circulated)

Of course, whoever makes these has a commercial process. I would have to do a lot of experimenting to get just what I want, and that's on the table. I am not America's Test Kitchen.

During one shortage, I saw the identical orange slices being sold on Amazon, for twice the price, so it's pretty obvious what was going on. Not my cup of tea.

I remember the great world bucatini pasta shortage, and locally, the mafaldine shortage. The latter was pretty odd. They disappeared from Sam's Italian Deli in Fresno, though they are very common on the east coast. So I ordered a bunch online.

About one package into them, they showed up again at Sam's.

There's actually an attachment for an Atlas pasta machine that looks to make them, but they are not the same.

I'm "spoiled" by these machine-created goodies, and am re-learning to make things. I remember the pasta machine and even the cavatelli machine from my youth.

I love cooking.

I just hate the cleaning.

[kimbutgar]

9. I hear you on the cleaning part!

Whenever I cook I have to clean up afterwards but when my husband cooks I have to still cleanup afterwards. Though it’s a bad pot he will clean it but the rest I have to take care of. Learned a long time ago clean as you cook and don’t wait to do it at the end. I also now soak my dirty dishes in my sink and then do a deeper clean at the end.

[usonian]

10. Amen to that. I do it all.

Butler quit.

[niyad]

5. FU, wsj, for calling TJ's customers "rabid".

[usonian]

8. Well, isn't that precious?

They all seemed pretty normal, well adjusted people to me.

I scan the news items linked at Hacker News, and I'm getting very good at spotting the clickbait from WSJ, NYT and the like.

They must have an internal job position of "clickbait headline writer".

Then again .... AI?????