How T.J.Maxx Is Enticing Customers To Spend More With Its Food Aisles

T.J.Maxx’s food aisle has been getting varied remarks online, with some content creators on TikTok questioning the quality of the food and even wondering if it has passed its expiry date, according to Business Insider. However, others say it’s a good bang for your buck and that they can taste new and unique items.

A TikTok video that went viral said, “The T.K. Maxx food aisle fills me with literal terror,” using the chain’s U.K. brand name within the content. Another video said that the food had an “ominous energy.”

Another TikTok user said, “It does weird me out. I’m very curious as to why they have brands I’ve never seen in my life.”

However, T.J.Maxx’s food range allows the retailer to encourage shoppers waiting in the queue to pay to spend more along the way. The retailer has also been using this as a strategy to broaden its product range in order to step into the general gifting space.

The store tends to source from vendors that haven’t been heard of before, and it stocks a random mix of edibles, from pink Himalayan salt grinders to bottles of coffee syrup and boxes of fancy chocolate.

According to Aneesha Sherman, an analyst at Bernstein, T.J.Maxx has been selling food for more than a decade. She said the retailer has used the same strategy it uses for clothing and other products as it has done for food by selling excess stock that has been difficult for suppliers to get rid of.

Sherman said that T.J.Maxx had grown from apparel to any inventory that’s available to purchase at very affordable prices. It then resells to customers at a marked-down price that still enables the retailer to make a profit in the process. She added that the food items in store most likely also have higher margins than its lowest-priced clothing.

When T.J.Maxx began its food business, it bought discounted products with a leeway of three months before they expired, a time frame that “other food sellers were put off by,” according to Sherman. Sherman also added that the retailer doesn’t sell fresh food, so it doesn’t need to deal with getting deliveries from suppliers on a fixed regular basis to cater to shorter expiration dates.

Sherman reacted to concerns that some TikTok users have about T.J.Maxx selling low-quality and out-of-date foods. She said people just don’t trust the brands as much because they’re unknown to them. “There is probably a brand recognition issue because by definition, if they’re buying niche products from brands you’ve never heard of, the value is you can’t get it anywhere else,” Sherman explained. “But the downside is you’ve never heard of the brand. So it goes hand in hand.”

She added, “I think it’s a matter of time as people try the foods and realize that their quality is actually pretty good and there isn’t an expiration date issue, the trust in that category will probably grow over time.”