Yes, those pesky political companies...
* Paying their employees above average wages
* Working with their suppliers to achieve win/win/win outcomes wherever possible
* Stocking products that enhance their customers' lives instead of optimizing for profit margins and nothing else
* Etc
Costco is a rare example of a company doing the right thing and succeeding under late stage capitalism.
I just think their branding is more appealing to you, combined with a more pessimistic view of companies you don’t use.
> Paying their employees above average wages
Their reasons for having higher wages are well-documented and they are equally self-serving.
> Stocking products that enhance their customers' lives instead of optimizing for profit margins and nothing else
They are one of the most aggressive profit seekers in existence! Often that presents publicly in their deals with supplier.
If this is your idea of "appealing branding" then call it whatever you need to.
Unfortunately, experience shows these rare gems are often one generation away from going to shit when the principled types retire and are replaced with backstabbing money grabbers who think the only way to win is in a race to the collective bottom, because "that's what everybody else is doing."
The bottom line is that they are paying their employees much more than their competitors would. You're going to pass that off as "self-serving"?
Their biggest competitor is owned by a family whose combined net worth is half a trillion dollars that derives from founding a megacorporation worth a trillion dollars....yet for some reason can't find the money to pay their employees a living wage, so they instruct their employees to go on government assistance.
They have a different business model than their competitors.
> You're going to pass that off as "self-serving"?
Yes. Their model allows a few employees to serve many customers in a high-volume system. They have advocated for minimum wage laws increases in the past to deter competitors who have different models.
> yet for some reason can't find the money to pay their employees a living wage
eye roll.
If thats the right thing and were really in late stage capitalism, I'm extreamly worried about the future.
So on this point I agree with you, but it does not substantially subtract from my overall view of Costco as a company in every other regard. I trust that in time they will revise whatever needs revision in order to be fair to everyone involved. Oddly enough, at least in my area, this doesn't seem to have resulted in a disproportionate amount of one race or another.