No matter their small selections and the near absence of brands you’d recognize: Trader Joe’s and Aldi are winning top honors in consumer surveys and proving to be enormously influential in the supermarket business.
A new study from Market Force Information asked 6,600 American consumers to name their favorite supermarkets in terms of categories like convenience, price, quality of meat and produce, courteous staff and variety of merchandise. The contenders included all the big names in supersize grocery chains, including Safeway, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Publix, Whole Foods and Walmart, but the overall favorite store named by consumers was a small retailer with a neighborhood-market feel and very few national brands: Trader Joe’s.
“When asked to rate their satisfaction with their most recent grocery-store experience and their likelihood to refer that grocer, consumers scored Trader Joe’s above all others,” the study states. “Publix, Whole Foods, Wegmans and Aldi also ranked high” with consumers. Walmart, on the other hand, ranked at the very bottom of Market Force’s “customer-delight index,” which combines shoppers’ overall satisfaction with the likelihood they’d recommend the grocer to others.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: TIME
