The national survey of 2,932 Canadians, conducted by Maru Public Opinion as part of the Canada’s Most Respected Awards Program, found that Costco was the most respected food retailer in Canada for the second consecutive time.
I’ve only ever heard positive things about costco as an employer. good on em
It’s not all roses but the shit that sucks, sucks everywhere so what can you do. The money is at least worthy of human life
Yeah, my wife worked for Costco for a few years and it was… fine. It wasn’t exceptional in any way, but it was decent. But for a retail chain, “decent” is a pretty significant improvement over the competition.
I’ve noticed that, at least historically, a lot of the buzz around Costco being a great employer comes from the States. Which makes sense, as the bar is even lower down there, so the same policies are much more impressive.
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Costco’s business model makes way more sense than most other grocery retailers. My only complaint previously was that the sheer volume of groceries you needed to buy to make it worthwhile turned it into more of a mecca of car-dependency culture than anything.
Now that there are somewhat affordable delivery options, they are head and shoulders better than any other grocery store in my opinion.
Costco’s business model makes way more sense
Yes, there is something to be said about only opening stores in high density, high income neighbourhoods. With only 855 stores worldwide (and only 107 in Canada), they are able to generate well over a billion dollars in net income by doing so.
But there is only so many high density, high income neighbourhoods, and they can only handle so many stores. It is not really a duplicatable model. Instead, Loblaw and the like go where Costco refuses to. You can actually find their stores in small towns and other poduck places.
Sure, it’s not nearly as profitable serving the poor. Loblaw has over 2,400 stores, yet only sees a measly 500 million dollars in net income, but ultimately someone needs to service those markets. And, really, it’s still a pretty good gig. Old Galen there isn’t exactly hurting.
I go by bike. Very possible, especially with a cargo bike, but even with a normal one with panniers.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover our local Costco has a bike rack! It could be oriented more towards employees than customers given its location closer to the employee entrance, but I’ve always thought of it as a car-oriented place given their bulk sales focus. I have been there by bike to pick up small items like pharmaceuticals, batteries, etc. and it’s nice to not have to fight for a parking spot on a busy Saturday.
Loblaws can suck my fucking dick, after they stole money from me and fucked my credit with their PC financial bullshit and then never even gave me a refund or response after spending over 15 hours on the phone and in person has put me to the point where I no longer use any of their services when possible.
LOBLAWS NEEDS TO BE REGULATED.
Short sighted MBAs that try to squeeze out every penny from consumers don’t realize (or don’t care) how valuable good will is.
It’s not even good will. Retaining skilled employees is worth more to the company than suppressing wages.
I worked for a Sobeys chain for over a decade and lost count of the number of times they let a skilled employee walk over a trivial promotion, only to have to fill their position with two people in the short term. Then after countless hours wasted searching for and training a replacement they’d do the exact same thing.
Like, you can’t bump your weekend dairy guy from $17.50 to $18 but you can replace him with 2 high school kids making $15.25/hour that combined still manage to do a worse job.
I agree, it’s also bad business in other ways. Sometimes I get the feeling the irrational contempt for workers is part of the decision making. As if to say, “How dare they ask for more wages?”
I was a loyal Superstore customer for 15 years (prices were good, quality was good, selection was good) until this year when I was on my account and saw a link that showed me how much I had saved from my PC membership, which promised discounts on PC brand stuff which I bought frequently, but most notably 20% off diapers/baby products. Surely having a a small child and baby on the way I would recoup the $99 annual fee in just a few boxes of diapers! $68 in six years. I had never seen any notion of such a report before, it was the first time I ever checked. I assumed the discount was given in PC points or something, but no, I was just grifted out of $550. It was the last straw and I wish I had bought my Costco membership a decade ago.
PC optimum credit literally stole money from me, I applied for a card and got approved, they told me to set up a debit account to pay off the credit card and had me transfer in $10 to make sure it worked. Then a week went by and I didn’t get my card so I logged into my account only to see that they had blocked access to both of my accounts. 15 hours on the phone and in person and I never got a straight answer out of them as to why it happened and I never got my money back. My dad ended up convincing me to let it go cause I was about to take them to fucking small claims court, scammers!!!
I didn’t know that Bob Loblaw had business outside of his law blog
My first thought was “shouldn’t he be lobbing law bombs?”
Their financials are quite interesting. They make basically most of their money on memberships. Or, to put it another way, the price of items in the store is roughly equal to the cost of goods plus their distribution and overhead.
Or, to put it another way, the price of items in the store is roughly equal to the cost of goods plus their distribution and overhead.
I find that really hard to believe, since I find it’s very difficult to get a good deal on anything at Costco. I’m sure there are some good buys, but that’s true for every store.
Costco either don’t have much buying power, or other companies are selling at a loss (which we know isn’t true, since other companies are posting record profits all the time).
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Was this posted on Bob Loblaws law blog?
Bob Loblaw lobbing law bombs
What’s telling is that some of Loblaws brands actually went up in the survey. When you own so much of the grocery business and have a captive customer base you can do pretty much whatever. Do we have any antitrust legislation in this country?
We have some of the most concentrated markets in the world in certain sectors, notably the telecom cartel. Due to car culture and the advent of the supermarket, we don’t have small neighborhood grocers anymore. We do here in Vancouver, small immigrant run shops, and let me tell you, the quality is high and the prices are WAY lower than the national chains.
I wish
