Trader Joe’s Vows to Never Add this Aggravating Trend to Stores

Back in July, we posted a story about how Kroger was rolling out a new business model where their stores would only offer self-checkout.

 A Kroger grocery store in Cool, Springs Tennessee as of July 21st has completely done away with bag boys and cashiers

Trader Joe’s Saying ‘No’ to New Trend

In a society where convenience and efficiency often drive consumer preferences, it’s interesting to see Trader Joe’s take a different stance on this trend amongst big box stores like Kroger and Target. Other stores have been swiftly adopting the idea of less team members working behind the registers and relying mostly or completely on self-checkout.

Trader Joes Has a Podcast

Trader Joe’s remains committed to its traditional approach of having crew members working at the registers interacting with their customers. In an episode of a Q&A Trader Joe’s Podcast with Trader Joe’s CEO and President, Bryan Palbaum and Jon Basalone, they were asked a series of true and false questions. One of the questions that was asked was if self-checkout would find its way into the business model.

That’s as false as false can be because we believe in people and we’re not trying to get rid of our crew members for efficiency sake or whatever the reasons are people put self-checkout in

Bryan stands by his belief that “self-checkout is work” and he doesn’t want his customers working at his stores. He goes on to say that he has fun bagging groceries and working at the register where monitoring self check out for shoplifters is a hassle.