"We Want $15 an Hour and Full Time." Who's the Deadbeat?

[jmowreader]

52. When Walmart remakes their stores to be like Costco, maybe they will

Costco has:
189,000 employees and 650 locations
10:30-8:30 customer hours, not open on holidays
about 4,000 "stock keeping units" or SKUs - the retail industry term for a "distinct article of commerce," in that 12-ounce, 20-ounce and 2-liter Coca-Cola bottles are three different SKUs even though the bottles contain exactly the same product. Most of Costco's SKUs are house-brand merchandise, and you get as few options as is humanly possible - they have one size of one brand of mustard, not forty brands each in six sizes.
stores where most of the product can be set at the point of purchase with heavy equipment - forklifts and pallet jacks
two kinds of customers: businesses who buy their supplies there, and affluent customers with the financial wherewithal to buy a huge amount of product at one time AND homes large enough to store it, but who doesn't buy everything they need from Costco
a logistics system that relies on cross-docking and direct ship from factory to store
a $55/year (or $110/year with a LOT of extra benefits) membership fee, from which most of their profits derive

Walmart has:
2.2 million employees and 11,058 locations
24-hour customer hours, only closed on Christmas Day
somewhere between 140,000 and 150,000 SKUs
stores that have to be hand-stocked
a logistics system that operates traditional "warehouse-style" distribution centers
a customer base that does all its shopping there, and that is EXTREMELY price-sensitive
no membership fee

Costco has done everything it possibly can to eliminate the need for headcount...if they could figure out how to use self-guiding forklifts in their stores and only operate during daylight hours without pissing off the membership, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Since they don't have a huge number of employees and they work the ones they have to death, they can afford to pay them pretty well.

Moral of this story: What Costco does works great...for Costco, and to a certain extent for the Sam's Club division of Walmart. If you tried that shit anywhere else, you'd go broke quick.