Costco Vs. Wal Mart

Stocking, being in electronics, cashiering, maintenance or in the back binning is boring at some point when working for a certain time there. Even though it can be sort of boring at Walmart, there are some benefits to it. Employees at night and that work in the back don’t have to deal with customers often unlike Jalapeno Tree. Managers at Walmart will work with the employees schedule if they need days off for their personal needs. After every employee has completed their first three months at Walmart, they get an employee discount card which discounts on some merchandise in the store and even on gas. There are more benefits online for employees and can save money on movie tickets, sport tickets, hotel discounts, and more. Full time employees can get health insurance. AT&T and Verizon cell phone users can get up to twenty percent off their cell phone bill. Every employee is at least paid $9.00 an hour and night employees get paid $9.50 an hour. At Walmart, it is a requirement that the employee take two fifteen minute breaks and take an hour for lunch on an eight hour

In a state analysis, the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services found that in 2003, Wal-Mart covered only 52% of total health care premium costs compared to K-Mart which covered 66%, Target which covered 68%, and Sears which covered 80%. Wal-Mart takes advantage of their employees and suckers them into their costly healthcare plans. But, if something happens to an employee, lets say two months after their hire date, they will not be covered by any healthcare plan whatsoever. "Part-timers—anybody below 34 hours a week – must wait 2 years before they can enroll. Moreover, part-time employees are ineligible for family health care coverage. Full-time hourly employees must

rose or fell ... But it's clear that average wages fell. (Found off of a website on Google) Walmart workers do not get paid enough money either. The wages that Walmart employers are paid ranges from $7.50-$9.00, and that's even when people have been working there for quite a while. (Found on Google) Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas. So yes, Walmart is bad for America.

Sears and Wal-Mart are both nationwide retailers, but their similarities are only skin deep. Sears started to lose its dominance in the early 1980s. In an attempt to boost the dwindling market share, Sears started to issue proprietary Sears Card, which gave customers payment flexibilities. A new slogan focusing on the "softer side of Sears", and a revised product mix, were created to appeal to the middle-class female shoppers.

According to the Top 25 Companies for Compensation and Benefits 2014 that was released by Job-hunting site Glassdoor.com, Costco ranked 2th, which was just behind Google. Costco has one of the most competitive benefits packages in the industry. Its employees not only have a full spectrum of benefits, but also may elect coverage for their spouses, children and domestic partners. The company pays a larger percentage of the premiums than do most other retailers, and employee-paid premiums are withheld pre-tax, which means employees get to keep more of their hard-earned money. Costco even runs a website www.costcobenefits.com for its employees to learn its benefits plan.

As stated on the corporate website (2017), “Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, where 2.3 million associates meet the needs of more than 260 million customers every week.” These numbers are huge, and with so many locations around the globe, they have had allegations been made by employees regarding their dissatisfaction about poor work conditions, gender discrimination, low wages, poor benefits, and inadequate health care. Walmart has been criticized for its policies against labor unions and this issue has prompted public outrage, (Johansson, 2005) which is of great concern for the market. The company has also faced criticism for being anti-union, but it has claimed that it is rather pro-associate, whereby employees

Most of Wal-Mart’s suppliers are from China and that means less American made products and more foreign products going around. This lack of American production is what causes American factories to shut down, leaving the employees without jobs. Even if these employees decided to work with Wal-Mart, they would make around half of their normal salary with no health care or the job security benefits that have been the normal in factory work. “Wal-Mart wants high turnover, so people won't become attached to the company, and make demands on it."-Glen Ford.

Because Wal Mart already have a lot of these expectations set in place, it is very important that the employees are educated and informed of the company mission and the culture of the company. For any company including Wal Mart it is very important that the employees are treated with respect and they are treated equal. The employees should also have a clear understanding that their success within the company would be rewarded. Wal Mart has set training programs for their employees.

Does Costco pay its employees too much? Does it make sense for Costco to compensate its employees so much better than the employees at Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club? Why or why not?

Being such a large company with many stores and employees Wal-Mart faces many issues. Some of the issues the retail giant faces are; wages, gender discrimination, and health benefits. It seems too many that Wal-Marts has lost its way. When the recession hit Wal-Mart laid off many of its employees and because of that consumers feel the shelves are not being restock and they can’t find what they are looking for. According to Bloomberg Business Week Wal-Mart went from having 343 employees in a store in 2008 to 301 employees in a store in 2013. Even though the employee cut seems logical it is costing the retail giant business. There is no man power to keep the shelves stock and give customers the great customer service that Sam Walton envisioned. (Bloomberbusinessweek)

Another important aspect is a limited selection of goods. Whereas Walmart or Target may have upwards of 150,000 items sold in their stores. Costco will have less than 4000. They also have their own private label which is only equal to 15% of what they carry in the stores, but it equals out to over 30% of their total sales currently. Another aspect of the product selection is that instead of buying many

This is a comparison between Costco and Walmart’s Sam’s Club which shows Costco is more loyal

     When you talk about Wal-Mart the first thing that you have to remember is that they are the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart employs more people in the United States than any other company and is second only to the federal government in the number of employees that they have on the payroll. These are important facts to consider in that due to their tremendous size, Wal-Mart has an enormous

They also ensure employees only work enough hours to count as 'part-time' employees so Wal-Mart does not have to contribute towards health care costs.

With every company there come strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and Wal-mart is no exception. Wal-mart sits at the number one spot when it comes to retail businesses but they have had many issues; in particular labor law violations because they did not allow their employees to take required lunch and meal breaks.