Research Paper on:
Trader Joe’s: A SWOT Analysis

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
listed below. Citation styles constantly change, and these examples may not contain the most recent updates. Trader Joes: A SWOT Analysis Research Compiled for The Paper  Store, Inc. by K. Von Huben 9/2010 Please Introduction Trader Joes is a highly successful specialty grocery store. This paper is  a SWOT analysis of the chain. Discussion Doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is tricky, because many companies understandably dont want to reveal their weak points to competitors.  Trader Joes is even more difficult to analyze because they are privately owned and do not trade stock, which means that they dont have to file any reports with the  SEC. Therefore, a "gold mine" of information about any company, the annual report, is not available for this company. Fortunately, Fortune Magazine did an in-depth report on them just a  few months ago, and that provides a lot of good information. Background: First of all, Trader Joes today is owned by the German Albrecht family, an "ultra-private" family that is  famous for "not talking to the press" (Kowitt, 2010). They apparently have taken a "hands off" approach to running the company, since the system works without their interference; they visit  the U.S. stores once a year but make few if any changes (Kowitt, 2010). Trader Joes really was founded by a Joe, in this case one "Joe Coulombe (pronounced COO-lomb),  now 80," who opened the first store in Pasadena, to serve a clientele that was sophisticated but not very well-to-do (Trader Joes timeline). The store sold what seemed like  every kind of California wine produced and that, plus its concentration on a few items rather than the shotgun approach of the larger chains made it a success (Trader Joes