[lemoncucumber]

The Trader Joe's model is an interesting comparison with the Costco model.

Similarities:

* Like you said, both have fewer choices than a conventional grocery store: if you want ketchup or peanut butter, there's only going to be one brand and one size.

* Both of them don't have scales at the registers: unlike at a conventional grocery store, nothing is sold by weight (which I'm sure provides another small efficiency gain).

* Both of them are cheaper than your typical grocery store.

Differences:

* I feel like Trader Joe's leans on store brand / white-labeling items more than Costco -- yes Kirkland Signature is a thing but Trader Joe's takes it further.

* The shopping experience is pretty different both in terms of the in-store experience and the quantities things are sold in.

* Costco requires a membership, Trader Joe's doesn't.

I wonder which elements of the two models would work best for a public grocery store.

[khurs]

Trader Joe is owned by one of the two German Aldi groups (two brother split original business to have one each) And both of them employ the same model globally.

They are huge - ~15,000 stores worldwide and growing fast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

[snark42]

> unlike at a conventional grocery store, nothing is sold by weight

Costco and TJs both sell items like meat by weight, they're just pre-labeled so they can be scanned rather than weighed at the register. Things like produce that might be weighed elsewhere are sold by each or container though.

[rootusrootus]

And regular grocery stores like Kroger do much the same thing. Aside from picking out individual produce items, and even then a lot of times it is per-item pricing. Nearly all of the by-weight stuff is pre-labeled

[drnick1]

Trader Joe's stores are tiny compared to Costco, and only sell food.