Trader Joe's, if you didn't already
know, has the best business plan in the world. This is self evident
by the fact that they pay their workers so well. Not like those evil
greedy corporate bastards at Wal-Mart that don't even pay a living
wage. Wal-Mart should model themselves after Trader Joe's.
Trader Joe's starts employee's out at $10 to $12 an hour. They pay their supervisors $35K to $50K a year. They offer great benefits for all their employees. Wal-Mart should do the same. So how does Trader Joe's do it?
Trader Joe's starts employee's out at $10 to $12 an hour. They pay their supervisors $35K to $50K a year. They offer great benefits for all their employees. Wal-Mart should do the same. So how does Trader Joe's do it?
Well, they run skeleton crews. They
have just under 400 stores and an estimated 10,000 plus employees.
That's just over 25 employees per store. That doesn't directly tell
us much though. Clearly Wal-Mart has much larger stores and would
require more employees so let's look at it from a revenue
perspective.
Trader Joe's procured $8.5 billion in
2012. That breaks down to revenue generated of about $850K per
employee. Wal-Mart generated almost $447 billion in 2012 with about
2.2 million employees. Well, there is their problem. They have too
many employees. They are only generating $203K per employee. By my
calculations they need to lay off at least 1.675 million workers.
You have to make sure you're getting your money's worth. Forget we
have high unemployment right now. People that can find a job should
be getting a living wage, right? And those 1.675 million unemployed?
Well, the state should just create more jobs or just expand
welfare.
Wal-Mart also has all those greedy bastard shareholders earning 3% on their investment. Not like that privately owned Aldi Sud, the parent company of Trader Joe's, which is owned almost exclusively by a single family, which happens to include the richest man in Germany (worth 17.2 billion Euros), and which keeps most of their company's dealings and operations very secretive.
But, perhaps I'm being unfair to Wal-Mart. Trader Joe's is a completely different business model. Maybe it would be more accurate to compare it to another one of the best business models in retail, Costco.
Costco also pays it's employees very well and it's a publicly traded company, so the wealth isn't centralized in a single family. They made $99.1 billion in revenue in 2012 and have 160, 292 employees, so they are generating $618,247 per employee. So Wal-Mart still needs to cut jobs to match Costco. But only... wait... they still need to cut over 1.475 million jobs. But, hey! That's 200,000 jobs saved!
Wal-Mart will still have to make some other changes to match Costco's model though. Wal-Mart has this crazy stupid idea that serving the poor, lower class, and low to mid level middle class people with low prices and wide selection is somehow benefiting those people. Costco, on the other hand, knows that by charging a membership fee and providing only higher quality goods they can help the mid to upper middle class and the low end of the upper class with great deals that they obviously need. I don't know where those poor unemployed people are going to shop with their welfare and food stamps, but I don't care, at least Wal-Mart will be paying what employees it has left a wage that still only lets them shop at Wal-Mart.
But who should follow Trader Joe's then? What about Whole Foods? They're an evil greedy corporation run by one of those heartless libertarian schmucks. Let's make them follow Trader Joe's model.
Let's run the numbers for Whole Foods. They had revenue of $9.006 billion in 2010 with 58,300 employees. Man, they are not doing well at all. That greedy bastard is only generating $154,447 per employee. Clearly, he needs to cut staff by almost 48,000 workers. And reduce his selection. And take his company out of public trading.
In conclusion, I think it's totally fair to compare greedy, evil companies like Wal-Mart and Whole Foods to the totally selfless and not at all profit driven models of Trader Joe's and Costco. Ignore how many fewer jobs there would be. Ignore the extremely reduced selection. Ignore the one that's owned by a foreign billionaire. Ignore the poor not having a place to shop. Those things don't matter. What matters is people that can actually find a job and provide for themselves are making a living wage. That way they can afford to pay the taxes that will be needed to provide 100% for the newly unemployed 1.5 million that were previously at least paying part of their own way.
Wal-Mart also has all those greedy bastard shareholders earning 3% on their investment. Not like that privately owned Aldi Sud, the parent company of Trader Joe's, which is owned almost exclusively by a single family, which happens to include the richest man in Germany (worth 17.2 billion Euros), and which keeps most of their company's dealings and operations very secretive.
But, perhaps I'm being unfair to Wal-Mart. Trader Joe's is a completely different business model. Maybe it would be more accurate to compare it to another one of the best business models in retail, Costco.
Costco also pays it's employees very well and it's a publicly traded company, so the wealth isn't centralized in a single family. They made $99.1 billion in revenue in 2012 and have 160, 292 employees, so they are generating $618,247 per employee. So Wal-Mart still needs to cut jobs to match Costco. But only... wait... they still need to cut over 1.475 million jobs. But, hey! That's 200,000 jobs saved!
Wal-Mart will still have to make some other changes to match Costco's model though. Wal-Mart has this crazy stupid idea that serving the poor, lower class, and low to mid level middle class people with low prices and wide selection is somehow benefiting those people. Costco, on the other hand, knows that by charging a membership fee and providing only higher quality goods they can help the mid to upper middle class and the low end of the upper class with great deals that they obviously need. I don't know where those poor unemployed people are going to shop with their welfare and food stamps, but I don't care, at least Wal-Mart will be paying what employees it has left a wage that still only lets them shop at Wal-Mart.
But who should follow Trader Joe's then? What about Whole Foods? They're an evil greedy corporation run by one of those heartless libertarian schmucks. Let's make them follow Trader Joe's model.
Let's run the numbers for Whole Foods. They had revenue of $9.006 billion in 2010 with 58,300 employees. Man, they are not doing well at all. That greedy bastard is only generating $154,447 per employee. Clearly, he needs to cut staff by almost 48,000 workers. And reduce his selection. And take his company out of public trading.
In conclusion, I think it's totally fair to compare greedy, evil companies like Wal-Mart and Whole Foods to the totally selfless and not at all profit driven models of Trader Joe's and Costco. Ignore how many fewer jobs there would be. Ignore the extremely reduced selection. Ignore the one that's owned by a foreign billionaire. Ignore the poor not having a place to shop. Those things don't matter. What matters is people that can actually find a job and provide for themselves are making a living wage. That way they can afford to pay the taxes that will be needed to provide 100% for the newly unemployed 1.5 million that were previously at least paying part of their own way.
