Vendors should be regarded as extensions of the retailer, a Marks & Spencer concept. Their employees should be regarded almost as employees of the retailer. Concern for their welfare should be shown, because employee turnover at vendors sometimes can be more costly than turnover of your own employees.

For example, by the time I left Trader Joe’s, we were selling 45 percent of all the Jarlsberg cheese sold in California. Our price was $3.49. The going price in the supermarkets was $6.00. The “cost” of the supermarkets into their stores, however, was about $3.49. Why? Because the supermarkets insisted on advertising allowances, which were credited

I believe that the sine qua non for successful retailing is demographic coherence: all your locations should have the same demographics whether you are selling clothing or wine. We looked for our demographics: there are lots of overeducated and underpaid people in Southern California.

became intrigued by this and located the source of the pilchard: a packer in Peru. In June 1982, my wife, Alice, and I went to Lima to visit the canning plant. We witnessed something very interesting: the United States had a quota for imported tuna. Once Peru’s quota had been filled, a biological miracle occurred right there on the canning line.

1970. It deliberately copied the physical layout of Consumer Reports: the 8.5” x 11” size,

One of my grand objectives in Five Year Plan ’77 was to eliminate all outsiders from our stores and to halt all direct store deliveries. This was one of the most radical features of Trader Joe’s, vis-a-vis the rest of the grocery industry.

And there’s the element of enthusiasm. As soon as we got into Whole Earth Harry, we started to attract health food nuts who probably believed more in what we were doing than we did. To a considerable extent, they kept us on the straight and narrow: management was policed by its own employees! I noticed the same phenomenon when I began consulting

Early in my career I learned there are two kinds of decisions: the ones that are easily reversible and the ones that aren’t. Fifteen-year leases are the least-reversible decisions you can make. That’s why, throughout my career, I kept absolute control of real estate decisions

Many of our best product ideas and special buying opportunities came from our vendors.