I don’t normally do this but today I feel like throwing a plug in for another company that should be leading the way. Costco.

When Costco opened in the KC area I got a membership because they were literally giving them away for the first year. At the time, I was also a member of Sam’s Club (a Wal-Mart company). After a few visits to Costco I knew I’d be letting my Sam’s membership expire at the end of the cycle. There were so many reasons I liked Costco more and in light of the following linked article I know it was a good decision.

To workers and union leaders, it is a familiar refrain. These days, the story goes, consumers demand low prices, meaning goods must be produced and sold cheaply - and retail wages must be kept as low as possible. Companies like Wal-Mart insist they’re feeling the squeeze and must pay workers poverty wages - even while netting $10.5 billion in annual profits and awarding millions to top executives.

But there’s another company that is breaking the Wal-Mart mold: Costco Wholesale Corp., now the fifth-largest retailer in the U.S. While Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.68 an hour, the average hourly wage of employees of the Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse club operator is $16. After three years a typical full-time Costco worker makes about $42,000, and the company foots 92% of its workers’ health insurance tab.

How does Costco pull it off? How can a discount retail chain pay middle-class wages and still bring in over $880 million in net revenues? And, a cynic may ask, with Wal-Mart wages becoming the norm, why does it bother?…

Read on here.

Bringing this full circle with a dash of MINI being thrown in, I am encouraged by the fact that companies like Costco follow some of the same attitudes that companies like MINI are proud of -
“Even though everyone else is turning left, maybe you (we) should turn right and see what happens…”

I think what happens is that we begin to think not just outside the box but beyond the box.

Thanks to Gabe via Matt for the article.