The Pivot

Where is BlackGirlsInTraderJoes on Instagram?

If you’re reading this, that means the page name of BlackGirlsInTraderJoes is now BlackGirlIn. After three years & five months, it was time for a pivot. Before I get into the tea, I want to thank all of you Black Girls in Trader Joe’s for every follow, like, comment, share & kind word. It is not lost on me that there’s an amazing community that has grown organically to 260,000 strong has supported & gotten me to many places. To those that have mentioned my name in rooms that I wasn’t even in & believed in me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Now let’s get into it…

I believe my biggest superpower comes from my openness to change & my ability to pivot. But let’s rewind a lil bit. I have always been a resource for those that know me. When it came to skin care, shopping, hosting, entertaining & I even did meal prep at one point. The entrepreneur spirit & hustle is in my genes. When something wasn’t working, or a new opportunity presented itself, I was almost always willing to give it a try. Prior to BGITJ, I was re- launching my blog, but it wasn’t going to be super food focused. Cliff notes: I was an esthetician, COVID happened, I couldn’t work anymore & thought why not do both. BGITJ was supposed to be anonymous “no face, no case” like a lot of the other pages. Wrong. BGITJ BLEW up. Within the first couple days, Essence reached out & was like “hey, we need pictures”. So much for being anonymous, right? Boom. 100k in 90 days. I had to nurture this new baby community. But damn, I know Trader Joe’s doesn’t sponsor anyone or do any collaborations. How can I turn this into a business? Y’all were like… “Aye sis, we need to identify each other on the store!”. Lightbulb. The birth of the BGITJ merch. With the guidance of a couple of  Black women, the birth of BGITJ merch. No other Trader Joe’s affinity page had done this. I turned it into a viable business. I was doing ads, merch,  articles & more. This was also the time of great civil unrest so a lot of these companies were looking for diversity hires & representation to go along with the black squares, so BLACK Girls in Trader Joe’s looked real good. After a while that stopped feeling good for me. The money wasn’t worth it. I focused on Black owned businesses in the food space & those particularly in Trader Joe’s. Partake Cookies, La Fete Rose & Mama’s Biscuits. All I wanted was for us to rally around these businesses & show how much we supported them in Trader Joe’s & wanted more like them! I felt accomplished in that goal, despite Trader Joe’s, in my opinion, being a not so great partner to them.

The other goal when starting BGITJ was to encourage & influence more Black people to shop at TJ. I did just that. I don’t believe in being braggadocios, but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due. Over the last three plus years, I know the profits, volume of people & influx of store requests has significantly increased due to the influence of me, Black Girls in Trader Joe’s. It’s like that scene in The Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep explains the trickle down of the blue sweater. You may not know who Dee is or BGITJ, but you’re in here searching for Lemongrass Body Oil & Coconut Body Butter because of me. The BGITJ hashtag on the clock app has MILLIONS of views & most of them don’t know there was an Instagram page or a woman named Dee. Guess what? I love that for them. That means I did what I set out to do. Mission accomplished.

If you’re still reading [thank you], you’re probably wondering why the pivot with all this success & influence? Because unlike some of these other pages, being BGITJ is not my sole identity. Ain’t enough shelf space in all Trader Joe’s to contain Dee Davis. I am so much more & have so much more to give. But also, the name was getting in the way of my coins. Being soooooo niche, does not allow a lot of space for paid partnerships. Granted, those invested in me & the community know there’s more, but outside looking in it’s hard to understand. As stated before, I don’t think TJ is a very good partner. All these pages & you’re too ornery & stubborn to acknowledge these communities? I am not an “we’ve always done it this way” kinda woman, but I don’t own TJ so they can run their business as they see fit. Which is why it is solely my belief that Trader Joe’s has forbid any outside brands to partner with any influencer/Trader Joe’s affinity page. This hasn’t been confirmed, but I think as a company they are stingy with their marketing & image that they were beginning to lose control & the only way to reign it in was to do something that drastic. This idea & gut feeling I had let me know it was time to PIVOTTTT, as Ross would say. Imma still be in Trader Joe’s but I don’t need to dedicate so much to him [them/the business]. I have given enough & y’all got it now. There’s so much Black girl & Trader Joe’s content out there babyyyy. I am proud. I don’t feel like I gotta be the first to go find & post it anymore.

I am in a different era. That will reveal itself more & more as we go on this new journey together as BlackGirlIn. I am going to do what I know how to do well as an agent of change & embrace this new name & I hope you all do too. This is a community of give & take. If you’re just here to consume content & get recipes, that’s fine. However, it can be so much more if that’s what you want. What you put into it, hopefully will give back in some other way, shape or form. We, Black Women, are trendsetters. We have created a community based off a grocery store. Have you also gotten more smiles, “hey, sis”,  “are you in the group?” since BGITJ was created? Now just imagine when we keep that same energy anywhere we go.

So what’s next, Dee? Like Snoop said “just chill, ‘til the next episode”.

I love y'all forreal.