Strategic Analysis: Trader Joe's Before Amazon's Market Dominance

This case study analyzes the future strategies that Trader Joe's should adopt to maintain its market position in the face of increasing competition from Amazon, particularly after Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods. The analysis begins by evaluating Trader Joe's current marketing mix, identifying weaknesses in pricing and promotion, and recommending improvements such as increased advertising, discount offers, and loyalty programs. The study also highlights the impact of Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods, emphasizing Amazon's access to customer data and its potential to create more customer-oriented strategies. It concludes that Trader Joe's must strengthen its marketing strategies and improve customer satisfaction to compete effectively with Amazon. The analysis underscores the need for Trader Joe's to adapt its marketing mix and shop floor layout to enhance the customer experience and maintain its market share in the evolving retail landscape.

Running head: FUTURE STRATEGIES OF TRADER JOE’S BEFORE AMAZON
Future Strategies of Trader Joe’s Before Amazon
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Author Note

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FUTURE STRATEGIES OF TRADER JOE’S BEFORE AMAZON
Part 1 answer:
Trader Joe’s should modify its strategy going forward in order to dominate the
supermarket industry in the United States. The case study clearly points out that that Joe’s
marketing mix was mainly about products and place. The apex management did not pay
much emphasis on pricing and promotion. The future strategy of Joe should be concerned
with creating a powerful marketing strategy as whole and not only offering products. The
case study also mentions that Trader Joe’s did not spend financial resources to advertise is
products on the television which is a powerful audiovisual medium or give discount offers to
attract customers (traderjoes.com, 2018). The case study also remains silent on the actual
product line of Trader Jo. Thus from this analysis, one can construe that the first future
strategy of Trader Joe’s should be to promote its product line on the audiovisual medium like
television and also on the digital space. The supermarket should offer discounts and loyalty
cards to its customers. This is because such sales promotion techniques would enable it to
attract more customers. Trader Joe’s should also restructure the floor layout at their
supermarket stores to allow customers to rest and speak to the sales representatives
simultaneously. These strategies would enable the super market create more comfort to the
customers and enhance their satisfaction level (Phan & Vu, 2015). Thus, it can be
summarised from the discussion that Trader Joe’s must strengthen its marketing mix and
restructure its shop floor to enable the customers relax and speak to their representatives.
The purchase of Whole Foods by Amazon would have strong impact on the strategy
of Trader Joe’s. This is because by acquiring Whole Food Amazon would be able to get
access to the vast number of consumer data of the super market chain. The ecommerce giant
can use this data to study the purchase patterns of customers while buying groceries and food
items. Amazon can then use the knowledge to form more customer oriented strategy based on
the knowledge it would gain from the study of the customer base of Whole Foods

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FUTURE STRATEGIES OF TRADER JOE’S BEFORE AMAZON
(amazon.com, 2018). This would empower the ecommerce giant to offer more lucrative
offers to the customers to maximise customer satisfaction. This growing strength of Amazon
has strong impact on the strategies of Trader Joe’s. This is because as discussed, Trader Joe’s
has a very weak marketing mix and customer satisfaction arrangement like a television in the
shop floor for them to watch. Amazon on the other hand, is already a market leader in
ecommerce and serves a global base. Thus, the company would be able to sell Whole food
items using its ecommerce channel all over the IS. This shows Trader Joe’s must strengthen
its marketing strategies to counteract the powerful marketing strategy of Amazon. Trader
Joe’s if fails to match up to the marketing strategies of Amazon would lose its market to the
latter (Charanah & Njuguna, 2015). Thus, this shows that acquisition of Whole Food by
Amazon would have tremendous impact on the strategies of Trade Joe’s.

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FUTURE STRATEGIES OF TRADER JOE’S BEFORE AMAZON
References:
Amazon.com: United States: Books: State & Local, 19th Century, Civil War, 20th Century,
Revolution & Founding & More. (2018). Amazon.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018,
from https://www.amazon.com/United-States-Americas-History-Books/b?
ie=UTF8&node=4853
Charanah, J., & Njuguna, R. K. (2015). The effects of promotional mix tools on brand equity
among hospitals in Nairobi County.
Homepage: Welcome | Trader Joe's. (2018). Traderjoes.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018,
from https://www.traderjoes.com/
Phan, T. T. H., & Vu, P. A. (2015). The impact of marketing mix elements on food buying
behavior: a study of supermarket consumers in Vietnam. International Journal of
Business and Management, 10(10), 206.