Just ask Aaron. He only forgot one thing from his shopping trip to Trader Joe’s: soy nut butter. He went back only to find…it was a discontinued item. Why? Wasn’t his purchasing it regularly creating enough of a turnover? And those peanuts in the shell I had been buying every single week. Gone. Just like that. Do you remember the dark chocolate chess cookies? I bought them every week, too. I asked a Trader Joester where they had been moved to and she told me they never carried it. Are you kidding? I’ll bring you all my receipts for the past year and show you the charges for it. Newbie.
Youtuber “Carl” made his own Trader Joe’s commercial with his smart phone, walking the aisles. Too funny, and it rings true:
[youtube:www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB7GDZY3Pk]
I could go on and on about Trader Joe’s, but instead I’ll write about Costco and the asterisk next to the price of an item and what THAT means. It means you better buy ALL of it because they are going to discontinue carrying that item, the one you’ve been buying for 5 years. At least it’ll be a cheaper price than you’ve been paying. Sometimes, like magic, a product reappears after a couple of years. It happened to me last week; the R W Knudsen Blueberry juice was available again! It must have taken a long time to squeeze the berries.
Sometimes you can influence the buyers. At Trader Joe’s they keep a running list of customer requests. At Costco, I made such a stink about the brownie mix back in 2005. I’m revealing a well kept secret, but I don’t care anymore. I use a brownie mix. No one can make the brownies better than Ghirardelli. I’ve eaten tons of brownies and so I have my proof. I’ve been using the mix since the ’80’s when I found it in my Costco in NJ. You know, the famous Ghirardelli chocolate from San Francisco. Well, I move from the northeast to the northwest and expected SOME things in the Costco’s to be different. But, wait. The Costco in the northwest is carrying a brownie mix from Hershey’s. Are you kidding me? No wonder the mix is so expensive. The California mix has to travel to NJ and the Pennsylvania mix has to travel to Washington. Cross country, just like me!
I’m happy to tell you the Costco in Bellingham, WA now sells Ghirardelli brownie mix. They got sick of listening to this New Yorker flap her trap.