Some of the things that Costco sells is noticeably more expensive than Loblaw’s or elsewhere, but I still shop there because of how well they treat and pay their employees.
Another ready alternative is all the shopping that can be done online, shipped right to your door. It won’t cover everything, but it’s better than nothing.
Not the cheapest, but Public Goods comes to mind. They focus on providing a wide selection of eco-friendly-ish, nature-based home goods. They’re very transparent about their products’ origin, manufacturing/sourcing. Unfortunately, they curate their product reviews, so what you see is mostly praise & little criticism.
Walmart is predatory, arguably evil in their business practices. They’re entrenched in North America, the damage they have inflicted is already done. In many cities they are the only game in town.
Walmart is not low cost. The cost of shopping at Walmart comes from cheap items that look like their branded equivalent but are specifically made for sale at Walmart’s low pricing and only last 10% as long as the real thing, stolen wages from your community’s citizens, small businesses run out of town, decreased property values, and so many other negatives. There’s a valid reason why homeowners almost always fight against Walmart opening in their neighborhood. It’s a trash store that costs a lot of the back-end. Costco on the other hand sells quality goods, treats their employees fairly, and has great warranty and return policies. Don’t shop at Walmart, it is a threat to your community.
Over in the US I’ve been stoked to see the boycott. Also over in the US I’m now really sad that your only option is Walmart because that will fuck you in the end.
Costco is great if you need bulk or very specific but completely random items in the rotating stock. It is not a replacement for a grocery store unless you can reasonably buy a lot of one thing and use it before it’s bad.
Do y’all not have small business options? I buy 90% of my groceries from the corner shop across the street from my apartment building. They sell milk, bread, noodles, coffee, eggs, sauces, and a handful of different kinds of produce. I only need to shop at Loblaws once every few months to pick up the stuff I can’t get across the street. I know the owner, he’s a cool dude. He resists raising prices until the wholesalers raise their prices on him and he has no choice but to do it.
many people live in the suburbs which are not mixed zone areas; hence most stock up at supermarkets etc since getting there can be a 15-30 minute drive, let alone walking/biking.
Yeah I’m well aware. Loblaws and the other big box places are the beneficiaries of the downfall of our cities and productive urban places (a downfall which was engineered by big oil). I’m just surprised that people who are desperate to boycott places they disagree with are only able to go to other evil corpos.
I fundamentally agree with you that publicly-traded corporations are inherently problematic due to the nature of their fiduciary duty to shareholders. That said, I think Costco is clearly the lesser of these particular evils. I have no doubt that given time they’ll turn to shit, but thus far (to my understanding) they at least pay something resembling a living wage and have reasonably consumer-friendly policies.
Shopping local could (if even possible) be the more ethical option, but most people are struggling and small grocers simply don’t have the margins to generally be affordable. I’m betting very few of them are able to pay their employees anything close to Costco either (if they even care to - plenty of small business owners are greedy in their own right).
Now if only I didn’t have a panic attack every time I set foot in a Costco …
As far as I can tell, Costco isn’t the lesser of two evils, but rather the one non evil choice of the pair. Their profit margin is something like 2%, which is just what they get from membership fees. But this is what I recall from memory, and it’s data from many years ago, so if anyone has evidence to the contrary, do share.
Now that you mention it, I seem to recall reading something similar a few years back. I still think they’ll inevitably break bad though - all it will take is some board and/or leadership turnover. We can at least enjoy the ride (and cheap hotdogs) in the meantime.
That said, I think Costco is clearly the lesser of these particular evils. I have no doubt that given time they’ll turn to shit, but thus far (to my understanding) they at least pay something resembling a living wage and have reasonably consumer-friendly policies.
You’re absolutely right. Give credit where credit is due.
But eventually when the line stops going up then all of those worker/customer friendly policies will go out the window.
Oh, absolutely. It’s all but inevitable and we’re not exactly spoiled for good options in our oligopoly-friendly country, but at least for the moment they’re not Loblaws/Walmart.
Nobody had to shop at the place offering “the cheapest shit” while all the smaller businesses were forced out of the market. People literally had a choice to spend one extra dollar, or end up here.
If you fall for the rhetoric that money is everything then yeah alright… Nobody could do anything about it I guess.
Did they though? When wages have stagnated for decades? It’s really easy as a middle or upper class person to say “what’s a dollar here and there?”, but as a poor person it’s the difference between running out of money before payday or not. The long term cost of shopping at Walmart is greater than the short term savings, but poor people generally do not have the luxury of thinking about the long term.
Poor all my life prior till about three years ago. Like highschool dropout street addict poor. And still made it out to protests and food-not-bombs cookouts and other actions across the country. By the mid nineties when I was a late teen I could see what the Walmart and Starbucks were doing to my culture and I tried to do something about it.
Yeah. If spending my last dollar on ramen from the local corner store instead of 50 cents at the big box has ever been an option, I’ve taken it. Happily. I understand the economics of raising a family in suburbia is different than what I’ve experienced as a person but I also understand that if everyone swallows the capitalism pill without coughing on it we’re all fuckin doomed. And you don’t need to be a punk or a radical to have access to that information in this era. At all.
I also have serious moral reservations about shopping at Walmart. We’re trying to use Costco when we can, but for small things, we don’t have a reasonable alternative. For the moment, we’re using Walmart when we must just to help discourage Loblaws’ bullshit, but I’d really like literally any other option.
Where do you live? In BC we have Safeway, save on, some minor stores attached to them, and the occasional whole foods. Some Asian grocery stores too like sungiven
Few more places to consider if you’re in lower mainland:
Freshco/Chalo if you have the option over Safeway/IGA (same stuff, cheaper, though produce isn’t always super fresh).
Langley farm market for produce is great, often good deals and competes with big chains on prices on said produce, meat, not so much other stuff (again limited access depending on where exactly you live unfortunately).
I’d do Saveon only armed with price matching flyers or I’m after something very specific I can’t find elsewhere. Plus I’m not a huge fan of Jim Patisson or whichever carguy owns it.
City avenue market is also pretty good for produce and the occasional offers for other stuff.
Very location specific - if you like a good bread, check out European bakery in Poco, awesome rye that would cost you 3times as much in some “artisan” bakery and still cheaper than semi decent loaf from big chains.
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