Costco wants to source more Kirkland products locally
Costco said it's looked to rerouting some of its supply chain to countries like Canada, while also sourcing out locally-produced products to avoid tariffs.
Sooooooo should I renew my membership or nah?
Costco is one of the rarest companies that, by corporate policy, has a cap on the profit they make on products year over year.
They choose to do other things once they hit that cap, like negotiate lower prices from their suppliers or, in the case of their chickens, fucking create their own chicken processing plant to vertically integrate the costs.
To terribly paraphrase their CEO, "Raising prices is easy and addictive. It's much better for our customers if we take the time and understand why we're losing margin and try to fix that."
Yeah, their maximum allowed markup of 14%, and the fact that they pay their employees well, is what leaves them as the only American store I'll still shop at. Still won't buy any American made products from them though.
Watch out for their pork specifically. For some reason last time I was there the chicken and beef were Canadian but all the pork seemed American.
Since Costco is a for profit company, it's good to be wary. But...the staff at my local Costco always seem genuinely happy to be there. I like to think I have the emotional intelligence to detect that there's more going on that being told to smile.
I don't know what Costco is doing differently, but their staff seem to take ownership and pride in their work.
I hope it's not just some new "stepford wives" corporate innovation.
If you one day turn your back and head into the woods, I’d say Costco should be the very last big box store you shop with. They’re a for-profit company but they’re one of the last reasonable ones.
