Re-post: How Trader Joe’s Wins by Getting “Everything Wrong”

Re-post: How Trader Joe’s Wins by Getting “Everything Wrong”

by | Jan 29, 2026 | Competitive Strategy, Consumer behavior, Consumer packaged goods, Customer service, Grocery, Hospitality, Marketing Strategy, Retail, Shopper marketing, Thought Leadership

We’ve advised clients on many of the strategies Trader Joe’s deliberately ignored, including loyalty programs, app integrations and carefully timed promotions. And yet, by doing the opposite, Trader Joe’s turned those choices into a $16 billion empire and a fiercely...
Main Street Re-imagined: Winning customers online and in store through storefront strategy

Main Street Re-imagined: Winning customers online and in store through storefront strategy

by | Aug 26, 2025 | Articles, Business, Competitive Strategy, Consumer behavior, Customer service, Employee Marketing, Grocery, Hospitality, Marketing Strategy, Mobile Marketing, Retail, Retail Banking, Shopper marketing, Thought Leadership

Since Y2K, conventional wisdom suggested that e-commerce would steadily diminish the role of the physical storefront. Yet even as digital platforms command a growing share of transactions, we’ve noted that physical locations remain indispensable. The storefront now...
Beat ‘em and join ‘em: Online retail needn’t be the enemy of brick-and-mortar

Beat ‘em and join ‘em: Online retail needn’t be the enemy of brick-and-mortar

by | Jan 31, 2024 | Articles, Business, Competitive Strategy, Consumer behavior, Consumer packaged goods, Customer service, Grocery, Marketing Strategy, Retail, Shopper marketing, Thought Leadership

The following is the final article in a 3-part series called “Attention Shoppers… The Competitive Strategy Approach to Addressing the Elephant in the Room of the Retail Crisis: The Customer Experience” One of the greatest retail debates of the last decade is over the...
To Train, Retain and Sustain: 8 Tips for slowing notoriously high retail employee turnover rates

To Train, Retain and Sustain: 8 Tips for slowing notoriously high retail employee turnover rates

by | Dec 12, 2023 | Articles, Competitive Strategy, Consumer packaged goods, Customer service, Employee Marketing, Grocery, Hospitality, Marketing Strategy, Retail, Thought Leadership

The following is the second article in a 3-part series called “Attention Shoppers… The Competitive Strategy Approach to Addressing the Elephant in the Room of the Retail Crisis: The Customer Experience” While Black Friday 2023 may not have been a “bah humbug,” it was...
Is Self-Checkout a Self-Imposed Hardship on Retail and Grocery? 8 Ways to make self-checkout a net-positive for staff and customers

Is Self-Checkout a Self-Imposed Hardship on Retail and Grocery? 8 Ways to make self-checkout a net-positive for staff and customers

by | Oct 30, 2023 | Articles, Business, Competitive Strategy, Consumer behavior, Customer service, Employee Marketing, Grocery, Marketing Strategy, Retail, Shopper marketing

The following is the first article in a 3-part series called “Attention Shoppers… The Competitive Strategy Approach to Addressing the Elephant in the Room of the Retail Crisis: The Customer Experience” The news about retail challenges is getting hard to ignore. This...