Trader Joe's has a playful brand but its business is very serious (annual revenue = $14B+).
With no ad spend or online sales, the chain perfected one psychological hack in its store/product design to achieve industry-leading sales of ~$1.7k per square foot.
Here's a breakdown🧵
1/ "The Paradox of Choice" is the main psychological phenomenon that explains Trader Joe's (TJs) success.
While "choice" sounds great, too many options can lead to analysis paralysis: the inability to make a decision and/or fear of making wrong choice.
2/ In 2000, Stanford researches highlighted "The Paradox of Choice" by setting up 2 display tables in a store with:
◻️24 jam option (60% of shoppers tried, 3% bought)
◻️6 jam options (40% of shoppers tried, 30% bought)
The table with fewer jam options converted 10x better!
With a clear understanding of human psychology, Apple designed its packaging to make these ~2B new iPhone unboxing experiences very memorable (and prob why you can't get rid of the box).
Here's a breakdown 🧵
1/ Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone in January 2007.
During the presentation, he noted that Apple had filed or been granted 200+ patents for the device.
One of the patents: the iPhone case.
2/ Jobs and Jony Ive long understood the value of packaging.
As Ive recounts: "Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging. I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater."
“I spend too much at Starbucks” is a legendary meme.
It's also not an accident: the coffee retailer -- worth $120B -- uses many psychological hacks in its store and menu designs to get you to drop more cash.
Here are 11 of them 🧵
1/ Starbucks is all about positioning
The chain has higher prices vs competitors. But that's the point.
People typically assign higher value/quality to higher prices. Known as "irrational value assessment", this makes Starbucks an everyday luxury that people will pay for.
2/ Premium brand = premium customer base
By setting its prices higher, Starbucks attracts clientele that are relatively price insensitive.
Starbucks frequently raises its prices with little negative effect to its bottom line.
Costco is the world's 3rd largest retailer by sales, notching $190B+ annually (behind Amazon, Walmart).
The company is all about "value" and uses psychological hacks in its business model and store design to get shoppers to spend dough.
Here are 14 of them 🧵
1/ At Costco, the membership is the core asset. Customers pay $60-120 per year for the right to buy comically large cans of tuna (AKA incredible value).
In its last reporting year, membership fees were 2% of revenue ($4B of $195B), but accounted for 70%+ of Costco's $5B profits.
2/ Membership psychology 1
In the early 2000s, Costco CEO Jim Sinegal told Jeff Bezos (who would roll out Prime) that "the membership fee is a one-time pain".
But the value of the concept is "reinforced every time customers sees 47" TVs that are $200 less than anyplace else."
After everything, Adam Neumann will walk away from WeWork with $2B+.
The money never changed him:
Honestly, pretty incredible WeWork was able to turnaround to its $9B+ IPO today.
Relevant excerpt from the WeWork book:
Also, never forget this wild text exchange between Masa and Softbank COO Marcelo Claure (WeWork chair) on how they planned to stonewall a $3B WeWork tender: