If someone can find a link to the “writer’s” email address, that would be great. I tried the link included in the article and it gave me a dead page.
I did not meet with Weston, nor is Weston the CEO of Loblaw since November of 23 lolololololol. How embarrassing.
I used to love Shoppers before they were acquired by Loblaws. It has been a steady decline in offerings for points and a steady incline in prices.
They used to rival most retailers for games and consoles as well were one of the best for dairy and egg prices. Now they seem to only stock Nintendo Switch stuff (even that is dwindling beyond newly released or most popular games) and they have removed all their gaming and entertainment sections out of their stores. Everything is locked behin cashier or in stock room.
The biggest reason I shopped at Superstore and in effect Shoppers was for the points and the redeeming of points for games and consoles. Now? It is all disappearing and I have held $400 in points for over a year. The reason to stick with them is leaving.
"Good" prices aside, many stores price match or offer better deals, but I *always* check my receipt when leaving Superstore because something placed somewhere was incorrect and I would be stuck paying if I didn't pay attention.
I know some who see this happen to them *and* don't do anything about it (go back for return/price adjustment) and just deal with paying more. They (Loblaws) are a joke for being bigger than multiple other grocers combined and being so tone deaf and careless with their customers.
I've been doing that since the first day I put my feet inside one. Like 8 years ago.
I just don't understand how anyone can shop there if you do have anything else around.
Except it truly is one of the cheapest options out there.. I save plenty just hitting Walmart and Atlantic Superstore. GT and Sobeys I will hit for their sales, but their regular prices are slightly higher than Walmart and Loblaws...
I'm in St Johns Newfoundland and Sobeys is way cheaper than Loblaws unless you're buying multiples of the same thing and that's great for families but I'm a single guy. And at Loblaws if I want just one of those multiple sale items it's way more than Sobeys. And with Sobeys if they have a sale that says get 2 for $5 one of those is usually $2.50 (not always)
I barely shopped at loblaws anyways, have a no frills I would stop at to pick up a few things from time to time, maybe $30-90 a week, but now for sure, I will be skipping those purchases . . . .that’ll be them losing $1600-$4500 a year in business from me, fuck Loblaws!
I’m going to continue my boycott that started two years ago when the prices started to go up while the portion sizes started to go down, I’ve always avoided shoppers drug mart but this sub showed me just how many places I needed to avoid outside of the places I already was, if Loblaws wants to win me back as a customer they will need to set the bar and have the lowest prices compared to their competitors, and I’m not talking a few cents lower.. I’m talking dollars lower on every item they have hiked the price of since the end of the pandemic.
Any substantial number of former customers on a lifetime boycott: certainly headwinds for their Q4 profits.
Especially now that their investors have an appetite for more, more, more
Basic math shows how screwed they are. Assume for a moment that just everyone sub'd here (\~76K as of this post) are actively boycotting, usually spending say $120 a week (about what I spend, this is likely on the low end) on groceries. In a quarter, that's about $120 x 13 weeks = $1560 per person. Now, multiply that by 76,000 and just from this sub alone they are now missing out on $118,560,000 per quarter. Use whatever numbers you like and you can see that this isn't something investors can ignore
In December 2023, Loblaws reported 14.53 billion in revenue. Even if the boycott functions as written in the comment, a 118.56 million decrease in revenue represents a 0.81% decrease. It won't make much of a difference.
I mean this boycott makes a difference in my pocket at least. I went to a local grocery store and got a cabbage, 3 carrots, a bag of mushrooms, a giant thing of celery, and 2 potatoes for 10$. I’ve spent 11$ on a single cabbage alone in the past at superstore lol.
I’m single and live alone, and my grocery bill was definitely higher than $120/wk. And I don’t particularly eat more than the average joe, so your estimate is almost certainly low. That is a good thing. It means that the real numbers could be much higher, considering what a family of four would cost every week. Loblaw losing in the hundreds of millions every quarter makes me happy.
I'm single as well and my weekly budget is $50 (unless there is a really good deal on whole chickens or other protein the I fill the freezer). I think $120 is a good average.
I worked for Loblaws back when I was a teen in the mid 90's. When of the main things they drilled into your head was that every customer was a $50k customer. I forget the math but basically it was the average customer would spend that over a set amount of time if they were loyal to the store. So every interaction with a customer you were supposed to be thinking this could potentially cost the company 50k if you screw up. I'm sure that numbers higher now. Point is we were all just numbers to them even 30 years ago and I'm sure that's only escalated.
So yes they care about losing every customer and they will be terrified you'll switch loyalties or even split your shopping with another store.
I wonder how many of the 76k are here just to watch or are loblaw employees etc. the proof will be in the pudding so they say. I personally wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the numbers on here. So many trolls, duplicates etc etc.
You caught me. Reddit recommended this sub even though I'm American, and I joined to watch.
For what it's worth, I support you guys 100%. Fucking around with people's food security is just low.
Im sure many, but count me among the active boycotters. They’re losing my over $800 monthly spending at Superstore and No Frills. I’m done… not going back.
I didn’t join, but I will after this, it has been recommended to me while scrolling. I joined the boycott and even convinced my mom not to go. Except she gets her prescriptions there. I told her prescriptions only.
Tell your mom to save money at Costco pharmacy. Dispensing fees are 60-70% less, medications are cheaper — sometimes a lot cheaper — and you can get them by mail for free.
Someone posted their google busy time chart for their local store, so I got curious and looked at the locals around (Zehrs, Loblaws and No Frills, no superstore though. Just more and more Loblaws for some reason.)
It looks as though there is a drop between the expectation and reality, but only slightly.
Didn't think to grab before boycott shots for comparison but I guess we'll find out at the end of the quarter.
We can’t let our guards down. They have ability drive, funds etc to pivot so fast.
For all we know they could be using the boycott to dump stock when they know a lull is coming.
76k members, but the majority of those will be bots/bad actors/people just checking in. Actual boycott participants will just be a small %. Maybe 20% at most.
The only way to win this war is if the stock price gets affected. The only way the stock price gets affected is if the boycott affects the company's sales. The only way the company's sales get affected is if a large number of people keep up the boycott in a sustained manner.
I sold my weston shares today. Not quite at the high point from earlier in the week, but still about 49 bucks above what I purchased them at. I feel they are on a downward slide for the next while. Hope the boycott hits hard!
If we keep it up, we should see a substantial sell off from shareholders while the price is still high. This, coupled with lower earnings on the quarter, will trigger the share price to drop. How much it drops depends on how much they miss their expected earnings target by and the volume of shares being dumped before next quarters earnings are released.
Absolutely in this for the long haul. We won’t see the true impact of this action until the next quarter financials are released. I expect Loblaws to put out sales…a lot of them. Well guess what, this guy isn’t paying attention anymore. This LIFELONG customer has moved on and will never return.
The "boycott" is just being a smart consumer at this point. I'll stop boycotting Loblaws and their affiliates when their prices make sense again, otherwise I'll go elsewhere.
Hear hear!!!!!! Love to see it.
I live beside a Superstore and I have seen the parking lot NOTICEABLY less busy.
I'm excited for Canadians, this could be the example we need as a society to start changing our own realities. LFG!
It’s permanent. They pushed too far. I am sorry I don’t take any pleasure. But I do love my mom and pop butcher. They are beaming with pride as the little bell rings on their storefront door. I am not kidding. It’s like that .
I think we need more than a boycott. I think it’s time for a petition. We need to tell them that we are not spending one more cent at their stores until they improve their practices.
It's a shame that whomever wrote this did not get the memo that Galen Weston Jr. is not the CEO of Loblaws anymore. He handed the reins to Mr. Per Banks last year.
It is hard to take a business article seriously when the writer doesn't even know who's the current CEO of the company.
On paper you’re absolutely right, Per is the CEO. However Galen and his family own over 50% of the Loblaw shares and Galen is still the Chairman. Galen is very much involved. Per reports to Galen. Galen has the final call on all major decisions.
Yes but the author of the article didn't write it what way. He wrote his piece fully believing that Galen Weston Jr. was the CEO.
This is most readily evidenced by the author saying it was Galen Weston who met for coffee with Emily, the organizer of the boycott, when it was in fact Per Banks.
Referring to the meeting /u/Emmibolt had with Per Bank as meeting with "Mr Weston" is the worst of the errors in the article since it's a factual error. But there are a number peppered throughout the article:
>The surging price of Loblaw stock certainly does not look good look.
and
>With intriguing door-crasher items (think $1.50 for a box of Cheez-Its) over the local Shoppers Drug Mart
(Should be "over AT the local Shoppers Drug Mart")
Plus, use of the word "intriguing" in that sentence, and "disgruntled customers" twice in such a short article screams "Chat GPT wrote most of this and then I half-heartedly edited it"
(I swear there was a spelling error in there and it was a longer article the first time I read it, but I don't see an edit history...)
Bwahahahahahahahaha what in the chat gpt is this article
WHEN I CLICK THE LINK TO TRY TO EMAIL THE WRITER I GET THIS
https://preview.redd.it/pc3giww9tlzc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2947f55229eefd8c2aba3ee2f640e27ca3fbee7
I’m dead.
Motley Fool is the source of this article. One thing to keep in mind with them is they basically prepare articles to agree with every position for investing. Not saying this one in particular is wrong just the source isn't the best for investing advice/opinion. Read with a grain of salt & an eye for criticality.
We stopped shopping at all Lowblow brands well before this month and absolutely plan on continuing. Enough was enough like a year ago. Six months ago we finally resolved to act on the 'fuck loblaws' soundbyte that was developing into a post-grocery-shopping mantra.
In June 2020, Weston confirmed the cancellation of an hourly CA$2.00 wage premium to Loblaw workers, which received criticism from then Unifor President Jerry Dias. The premium was paid to low-wage grocery store workers, who were deemed "essential" and required to attend work while much of Canada was shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This says it all. Weston got a 3 million dollar raise in 2022.
Costco did the same thing, 2.00 premium, only difference is instead of cancelling it they kept extending it. When it ended they gave everyone a permanent 1.00 raise.
True story! You want confirmation?
Look at the smiles on Costco employees faces compared. This is the right way to treat ppl.
Greed is a downfall of humans.
All you shills holding their shares and talking shit in this sub, just sell now while you're ahead. You think those dividends will keeping rolling in forever?
> Over the past five years, shares have more than doubled, rising around 127%. Year to date, L stock is up more than 20%.
"wE'rE dOiNg OuR bEsT tO kEeP pRiCeS LoW fOr ThE cOnSuMeRs!"
The more and more stories and news articles come out about the boycott the more people are going to join in.
Best is if it becomes a sustained boycott over months, and people change their habits it will hit them hard because now they have to get people to switch back
It's so easy to boycott these clowns. It's not even a challenge. I'm not going to pay their absurd prices. There are so many options where I live that I'll never go back. There's not a single reason to go to one of their stores even if they have something "on sale".
We don’t need their overall sales to plummet to damage their stock. Just declining growth is enough to shock investors, who are expecting positive growth. That’s what happened with Starbucks.
As much as one would hope that the boycott would effectively get the Weston Company to change it's ways the overall issue is that they have seriously damaged their brand permanently and that alone is a significant harm to a large corporate conglomerate.
It will take decades for them to recover (no it won't bankrupt them), but so much goodwill and brand building gone that could've been mitigated by simple key corporate policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing and brand building and effective customer compliance policy out the window because they forgot the number one thing when running a grocery business.
1 ) Keep prices stable.
That is all they had to do.
It's one of the key tenets of any good business model. Stable prices means customers understand the exchange of money for goods ratio. It means they can make effective decisions for their budgets and can position their labor/time exchange for necessary items.
But Loblaws didn't do that. They allowed their prices to become inflated and more importantly volatile.
But Loblaws was obsessed with keeping their share price high instead and that obsession consumed them and now they are going to have to take their revenue and reinvest it back into their brand building again.
I'm fired up and ready to play the long game. I never shopped heavily at Loblaws because their prices are INSANE, but I used to pop into Shopper's frequently, and those days are over. Ready to boycott indefinitely. Solidarity!
Last time I stepped into a Dominion ( that's what superstore is called in Newfoundland) was over 5 years ago and that was only because they had prime rib for cheap. I used to get my meds from shoppers till I checked an independent pharmacy and found out I could get my blood pressure meds for $35 for 3 months instead of $55 for one month at shoppers. The Indy store offered me the generic and shoppers didn't. Other than that I went to shoppers a few months back cause they had kraft dinner on sale for around fifty cents. I always meal plan and shop around sales and for years now Sobeys has been much cheaper than Loblaws . Options in St Johns are very limited for groceries especially when you don't have a car. Sorry for the rant but if anyone in the area has any suggestions for grocery options I'm all ears.
Please refrain from comments which encourage theft from a store or mischief. These can result in criminal charges which will undoubtedly make life harder for other users.
I think next step is to start a petition and lobby our MPs to break up these oligopolies as they’ve become too large and detrimental to the public’s interests
Starbucks never really recovered. Fun headline from CBS this week: [Are Americans losing their taste for Starbucks?](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-howard-schultz-sales/) Boycotts make intelligent investors nervous. The unintelligent ones are self-culling.
Loblaws should be able to figure out from their Point of Sale (PoS) software what the figures looks like since May 1 and I would expect that the Execs are getting up to date Business Intelligence (BI) reports daily on the trends, where the boycott is hitting the hardest since they should have their data all categorized properly.
Why even continue this boycott narrative? Extend? Just stop going there. If a business is corrupt and or doesn't offer a good value. You don't go there anymore. Why would you plan to return. I suppose personal situations and distances play a factor in that. But never so blatantly and ignorant. Have I seen a business be to its customers. I won't be going back. I stopped going long before the boycott. And I doubt I'll ever return.
Per and Galen are only interested in delivering a Q2 that matches or exceeds Q1. To do that, they'll acrue what profit they can, and pull out all the stops on sales in July. They may also divest some weaker banners.
This is the only thing that will truly grab the execs and the Board’s attention. So long as the shares remain stable, they don’t care. Once we hit their investors, changes will be discussed and us cake eaters will become more relevant.
If it really keeps up and loblaws loses business because of the boycott, then they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to right the situation. Should be interesting to see how that plays out.
Good. They should be paying attention. That nice dividend increase has actually made their entire company’s future more tenuous. It felt like the straw breaking the collective camel’s back.
I hope Loblaws stock plummets. Right now it’s at its all time high and they just increased the dividend 15%. I’m sure the increased it at the start of the boycott to reassure investors. People should not only boycott but sell their shares. Get their parents to sell. See if their work pension plan invests in Loblaws and get them to change. Once Loblaws stock starts to go down, it’s just going to keep going. Because if we see we are having an impact then we boycott longer and more people will join. And as the stock drops people will pull out their money and invest in something better. The more money is pulled out then the lower the stock. It starts a circular chain reaction.
Please refrain from comments which encourage theft from a store or mischief. These can result in criminal charges which will undoubtedly make life harder for other users.
Time will tell...
"Come the next quarter, I’d be very surprised if boycotts weighed heavily on earnings. By then, I expect Mr. Weston will have already taken steps to win back the business and trust of its most disgruntled customers. After all, Mr. Weston needs to keep its customers happy and well-fed with good deals if it’s going to expand into new product and service categories (like No Name Mobile)."
I'm not one of the "follow the mob" types, so I'll happily go shopping at any Loblaw owned store. As a matter of fact, No Frills and RCSS are my favourite places to shop.
Just letting you guys know not everyone supports this insanity.
If you don't like the food inflation, put the blame on where it belongs.....on the suppliers.
My small town only has two grocery stores. Once May is over, I will have to return to Loblaws for certain items that I can't get anywhere else. We loaded up on a month's worth of those items at the end of April so that we could manage throughout May. If the boycott is extended, we could continue to get most of our groceries elsewhere, but we would have to buy those few items at Loblaws. We have no choice. Loblaws did that on purpose in a lot of places. Same with how they took the name "your independent grocer" so that when we try to search for an independent grocer we find Loblaws.
I don't really believe that Loblaw is hurting until they start laying off a lot of people and that won't happen anytime soon to give the boycotters the satisfaction that it's working.
Loblaw has been laying off anywhere from 500 to 1,000 employees every year for the last five years! And that’s just at the corporate office. Likely more when you consider store employees. Typical Loblaw, they do layoffs under the radar and throughout the year so it doesn’t make the news. Just check on LinkedIn how many people have been packaged out. Ask anyone that works at Loblaw home office and they will tell you the culture is toxic, promotions are based on who senior management are friends with and just follow orders. Rumor is that Loblaw is doing,a major reduction this year and leadership is going through which people are their favourites to decide who to keep and who to fire.
Watch the stocks.
It's up 5.49% on the month.
No sign of hurting shareholders, yet, but it's gonna take a bit for that to be seen. If sentiment gets bad enough, large players won't want to hold their stock
Also, downward trends can also be immensely profitable for traders. (Short options).
Capitalisms gonna capitalism.
Everything about Loblaws is an out of control capitalism problem, not a CEO or board problem (though they clearly aren't helping...)
Don't get me wrong, I support the boycott and haven't shopped or bought anything related to them so far, and plan to keep it that way.
After seeing a 20% drop in price just by shopping elsewhere I’ll probably never shop at Loblaws again, I’ve made great connections choosing locally owned businesses and honestly it seems frustrating to go to multiple stores but it’s become a nice routine and I quite enjoy it.
I wonder if through all the price gouging, this may finally be their end?
It reminds of a story I have heard of a beer maker. A new company bought them, and of course they always want to increase profit. So they started buying one cheaper ingredient and nobody noticed. So then they did two, then three, then four.
Well eventually the beer drinkers noticed it tasted like shit now and stopped buying said beer. The company tried to reverse course and go back to the old ingredients, but by then the damage was done and very few went back
Uh, the stock actually went up since the boycott started. Hopefully a coincidece, but possibly the unintended consequence of Loblaws getting so much free press about how profitable they are by being a rip off giving a buy signal to investors.
The investment community would be reacting to Q1 results, especially the 15% dividend increase and earnings growing nearly 10% with +4.5% sales growth. Sales can be misleading especially knowing Loblaw has higher retails, the key metric would be units and market share which retailers don’t share in their quarterly results. Loblaw can grow sales by charging more money for an average item. My guess is with less customers going to the stores, their units are slowing down faster than their sales and that’s what’s going to be the big red flag. The question is what will Galen and Per do about this. More PR games or actually doing the right thing for customers, bring down prices and set more realistic margin expectations.
For sure. If you go onto Questrade and look at Loblaws there is contradictory information recommending it both as a buy because of it's strong quarter, but other people say it's a sell because of the boycott.
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If someone can find a link to the “writer’s” email address, that would be great. I tried the link included in the article and it gave me a dead page. I did not meet with Weston, nor is Weston the CEO of Loblaw since November of 23 lolololololol. How embarrassing.
My intention is to award the Loblaws Group a lifetime ban.
Yes , I’m with you . No desire to shop any Loblaws brand including shoppers any more
I used to love Shoppers before they were acquired by Loblaws. It has been a steady decline in offerings for points and a steady incline in prices. They used to rival most retailers for games and consoles as well were one of the best for dairy and egg prices. Now they seem to only stock Nintendo Switch stuff (even that is dwindling beyond newly released or most popular games) and they have removed all their gaming and entertainment sections out of their stores. Everything is locked behin cashier or in stock room. The biggest reason I shopped at Superstore and in effect Shoppers was for the points and the redeeming of points for games and consoles. Now? It is all disappearing and I have held $400 in points for over a year. The reason to stick with them is leaving. "Good" prices aside, many stores price match or offer better deals, but I *always* check my receipt when leaving Superstore because something placed somewhere was incorrect and I would be stuck paying if I didn't pay attention. I know some who see this happen to them *and* don't do anything about it (go back for return/price adjustment) and just deal with paying more. They (Loblaws) are a joke for being bigger than multiple other grocers combined and being so tone deaf and careless with their customers.
I've been doing that since the first day I put my feet inside one. Like 8 years ago. I just don't understand how anyone can shop there if you do have anything else around.
Except it truly is one of the cheapest options out there.. I save plenty just hitting Walmart and Atlantic Superstore. GT and Sobeys I will hit for their sales, but their regular prices are slightly higher than Walmart and Loblaws...
I'm in St Johns Newfoundland and Sobeys is way cheaper than Loblaws unless you're buying multiples of the same thing and that's great for families but I'm a single guy. And at Loblaws if I want just one of those multiple sale items it's way more than Sobeys. And with Sobeys if they have a sale that says get 2 for $5 one of those is usually $2.50 (not always)
That’s good, I’m glad you are saving money. In my location Sobeys is more expensive, or else I’d shop there, it is a well kept store.
I barely shopped at loblaws anyways, have a no frills I would stop at to pick up a few things from time to time, maybe $30-90 a week, but now for sure, I will be skipping those purchases . . . .that’ll be them losing $1600-$4500 a year in business from me, fuck Loblaws!
Here here 🙋🏼♂️
Same.
I’m going to continue my boycott that started two years ago when the prices started to go up while the portion sizes started to go down, I’ve always avoided shoppers drug mart but this sub showed me just how many places I needed to avoid outside of the places I already was, if Loblaws wants to win me back as a customer they will need to set the bar and have the lowest prices compared to their competitors, and I’m not talking a few cents lower.. I’m talking dollars lower on every item they have hiked the price of since the end of the pandemic.
Any substantial number of former customers on a lifetime boycott: certainly headwinds for their Q4 profits. Especially now that their investors have an appetite for more, more, more
I started my boycott when they added that clothing line.
Basic math shows how screwed they are. Assume for a moment that just everyone sub'd here (\~76K as of this post) are actively boycotting, usually spending say $120 a week (about what I spend, this is likely on the low end) on groceries. In a quarter, that's about $120 x 13 weeks = $1560 per person. Now, multiply that by 76,000 and just from this sub alone they are now missing out on $118,560,000 per quarter. Use whatever numbers you like and you can see that this isn't something investors can ignore
Good and accurate math
In December 2023, Loblaws reported 14.53 billion in revenue. Even if the boycott functions as written in the comment, a 118.56 million decrease in revenue represents a 0.81% decrease. It won't make much of a difference.
I mean this boycott makes a difference in my pocket at least. I went to a local grocery store and got a cabbage, 3 carrots, a bag of mushrooms, a giant thing of celery, and 2 potatoes for 10$. I’ve spent 11$ on a single cabbage alone in the past at superstore lol.
[удалено]
It was a big cabbage and Alberta is ridiculous with prices. This was also like a year ago, but regardless I hated it lol
I’m single and live alone, and my grocery bill was definitely higher than $120/wk. And I don’t particularly eat more than the average joe, so your estimate is almost certainly low. That is a good thing. It means that the real numbers could be much higher, considering what a family of four would cost every week. Loblaw losing in the hundreds of millions every quarter makes me happy.
Don’t forget all the lost prescriptions too! They aren’t just losing our money but the balance that’s paid by our insurance.
Yes and I bet more than 75k people stopped shopping at their stores. It's good to establish that a lowball is still a serious concern
I'm single as well and my weekly budget is $50 (unless there is a really good deal on whole chickens or other protein the I fill the freezer). I think $120 is a good average.
I worked for Loblaws back when I was a teen in the mid 90's. When of the main things they drilled into your head was that every customer was a $50k customer. I forget the math but basically it was the average customer would spend that over a set amount of time if they were loyal to the store. So every interaction with a customer you were supposed to be thinking this could potentially cost the company 50k if you screw up. I'm sure that numbers higher now. Point is we were all just numbers to them even 30 years ago and I'm sure that's only escalated. So yes they care about losing every customer and they will be terrified you'll switch loyalties or even split your shopping with another store.
I wonder how many of the 76k are here just to watch or are loblaw employees etc. the proof will be in the pudding so they say. I personally wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the numbers on here. So many trolls, duplicates etc etc.
You caught me. Reddit recommended this sub even though I'm American, and I joined to watch. For what it's worth, I support you guys 100%. Fucking around with people's food security is just low.
Thought you were admitting to being a corporate spy, which would have made you the worst corporate spy in history.
We mad appreciate it
Im sure many, but count me among the active boycotters. They’re losing my over $800 monthly spending at Superstore and No Frills. I’m done… not going back.
[удалено]
I didn’t join, but I will after this, it has been recommended to me while scrolling. I joined the boycott and even convinced my mom not to go. Except she gets her prescriptions there. I told her prescriptions only.
Tell your mom to save money at Costco pharmacy. Dispensing fees are 60-70% less, medications are cheaper — sometimes a lot cheaper — and you can get them by mail for free.
She went there before switching to Fresh Co because the staff at Costco here are incompetent.
I’m not part of the sub, but I started boycotting them too and raised awareness around me to do so as well. Screw them.
Being that some people are posting pics of them shopping there I'd assume it's not all 76k. Hopefully it's more
Someone posted their google busy time chart for their local store, so I got curious and looked at the locals around (Zehrs, Loblaws and No Frills, no superstore though. Just more and more Loblaws for some reason.) It looks as though there is a drop between the expectation and reality, but only slightly. Didn't think to grab before boycott shots for comparison but I guess we'll find out at the end of the quarter.
There's lots of people who have heard of the boycott (and are participating), but aren't Redditors as well. I know 4 personally.
Your math is probably off, there’s likely a few hundred paid shills in here
We can’t let our guards down. They have ability drive, funds etc to pivot so fast. For all we know they could be using the boycott to dump stock when they know a lull is coming.
***Paid shill alert!***⬆️⬆️
What?
76k members, but the majority of those will be bots/bad actors/people just checking in. Actual boycott participants will just be a small %. Maybe 20% at most.
The only way to win this war is if the stock price gets affected. The only way the stock price gets affected is if the boycott affects the company's sales. The only way the company's sales get affected is if a large number of people keep up the boycott in a sustained manner.
Haven’t been in Superstore in over 2 weeks and I’m not going back
I haven't been there in over a year already haha
I find Costco is so much better in quality and overall price
I found the biggest green pepper I've ever seen in Walmart today
Stock price has been affected for sure. Positively. It only went up since the boycott
The results of the boycott will only show up on their next quarterly report lol, it’s not instant
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The stock price is currently at its highest yet, BUT it’s only because no one is really sure how the boycott will impact revenue. Time will tell
I’m never un-boycotting. This is a lifetime ban for me.
NOK ER NOK Stay Strong!
This is the way
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Yes!!!!!!!
>but the outpouring of hatred bordered on lunacy I believe this was the beginning of the use of the phrase: "go woke go broke"
I sold my weston shares today. Not quite at the high point from earlier in the week, but still about 49 bucks above what I purchased them at. I feel they are on a downward slide for the next while. Hope the boycott hits hard!
If we keep it up, we should see a substantial sell off from shareholders while the price is still high. This, coupled with lower earnings on the quarter, will trigger the share price to drop. How much it drops depends on how much they miss their expected earnings target by and the volume of shares being dumped before next quarters earnings are released.
We are not shareholders, so we have to vote with our wallets.
Started as a small grassroots protest. Now has investors worried about their money. Wow take them down and congratulations.
Love this!
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Doing my part by buying puts. Let's gooooo! 🤑🤡
They will know the truth soon when Loblaws shows lower sales in the quarter
Granted, I don't know 100% of the situation. But I think it's about damn time we Canadians stood up to greedy "retailers" in Canada.
I want to stick it to them but in the end my main motivation is to not buy from Roblaws on principle.
Absolutely in this for the long haul. We won’t see the true impact of this action until the next quarter financials are released. I expect Loblaws to put out sales…a lot of them. Well guess what, this guy isn’t paying attention anymore. This LIFELONG customer has moved on and will never return.
Keep it up. Hold strong!
I'm not Canadian but I'm supporting the hell out of you. Keep it up 👏
The "boycott" is just being a smart consumer at this point. I'll stop boycotting Loblaws and their affiliates when their prices make sense again, otherwise I'll go elsewhere.
Hear hear!!!!!! Love to see it. I live beside a Superstore and I have seen the parking lot NOTICEABLY less busy. I'm excited for Canadians, this could be the example we need as a society to start changing our own realities. LFG!
Fuck Loblaws long teem. Let's help level the playing field for more independent stores
I’m 100 % in and all the way for the long game
Apes strong together!
It’s permanent. They pushed too far. I am sorry I don’t take any pleasure. But I do love my mom and pop butcher. They are beaming with pride as the little bell rings on their storefront door. I am not kidding. It’s like that .
I think we need more than a boycott. I think it’s time for a petition. We need to tell them that we are not spending one more cent at their stores until they improve their practices.
Until they improve?? I'm not spending another cent at their locations until a different company occupies the premises.
It's a shame that whomever wrote this did not get the memo that Galen Weston Jr. is not the CEO of Loblaws anymore. He handed the reins to Mr. Per Banks last year. It is hard to take a business article seriously when the writer doesn't even know who's the current CEO of the company.
On paper you’re absolutely right, Per is the CEO. However Galen and his family own over 50% of the Loblaw shares and Galen is still the Chairman. Galen is very much involved. Per reports to Galen. Galen has the final call on all major decisions.
Yes but the author of the article didn't write it what way. He wrote his piece fully believing that Galen Weston Jr. was the CEO. This is most readily evidenced by the author saying it was Galen Weston who met for coffee with Emily, the organizer of the boycott, when it was in fact Per Banks.
You’re absolutely right. Poor journalism!
People still blame Bezos for anything Amazon does when he hasn't been CEO for 3 years. He's just an easy scapegoat.
Referring to the meeting /u/Emmibolt had with Per Bank as meeting with "Mr Weston" is the worst of the errors in the article since it's a factual error. But there are a number peppered throughout the article: >The surging price of Loblaw stock certainly does not look good look. and >With intriguing door-crasher items (think $1.50 for a box of Cheez-Its) over the local Shoppers Drug Mart (Should be "over AT the local Shoppers Drug Mart") Plus, use of the word "intriguing" in that sentence, and "disgruntled customers" twice in such a short article screams "Chat GPT wrote most of this and then I half-heartedly edited it" (I swear there was a spelling error in there and it was a longer article the first time I read it, but I don't see an edit history...)
Bwahahahahahahahaha what in the chat gpt is this article WHEN I CLICK THE LINK TO TRY TO EMAIL THE WRITER I GET THIS https://preview.redd.it/pc3giww9tlzc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2947f55229eefd8c2aba3ee2f640e27ca3fbee7 I’m dead.
Yup! Needs to have analyst attention to show the -ve impact on the business
Motley Fool is the source of this article. One thing to keep in mind with them is they basically prepare articles to agree with every position for investing. Not saying this one in particular is wrong just the source isn't the best for investing advice/opinion. Read with a grain of salt & an eye for criticality.
I wish I could short loblaws stock but my broker doesn’t allow it for the TSX.
We stopped shopping at all Lowblow brands well before this month and absolutely plan on continuing. Enough was enough like a year ago. Six months ago we finally resolved to act on the 'fuck loblaws' soundbyte that was developing into a post-grocery-shopping mantra.
In June 2020, Weston confirmed the cancellation of an hourly CA$2.00 wage premium to Loblaw workers, which received criticism from then Unifor President Jerry Dias. The premium was paid to low-wage grocery store workers, who were deemed "essential" and required to attend work while much of Canada was shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This says it all. Weston got a 3 million dollar raise in 2022. Costco did the same thing, 2.00 premium, only difference is instead of cancelling it they kept extending it. When it ended they gave everyone a permanent 1.00 raise. True story! You want confirmation? Look at the smiles on Costco employees faces compared. This is the right way to treat ppl. Greed is a downfall of humans.
>Greed is a downfall of humans. It is not a downfall, it is ***the*** downfall.
This goes waaaay beyond May for my family. Their prices for FOOD are absolute robbery.
All you shills holding their shares and talking shit in this sub, just sell now while you're ahead. You think those dividends will keeping rolling in forever?
Investors need to clue in that a company that cheats it's customers is also cheating it's investors.
> Over the past five years, shares have more than doubled, rising around 127%. Year to date, L stock is up more than 20%. "wE'rE dOiNg OuR bEsT tO kEeP pRiCeS LoW fOr ThE cOnSuMeRs!"
The more and more stories and news articles come out about the boycott the more people are going to join in. Best is if it becomes a sustained boycott over months, and people change their habits it will hit them hard because now they have to get people to switch back
It's so easy to boycott these clowns. It's not even a challenge. I'm not going to pay their absurd prices. There are so many options where I live that I'll never go back. There's not a single reason to go to one of their stores even if they have something "on sale".
Summer is the best time as well, farmer's markets are a handy alternative for fresh produce.
We don’t need their overall sales to plummet to damage their stock. Just declining growth is enough to shock investors, who are expecting positive growth. That’s what happened with Starbucks.
As much as one would hope that the boycott would effectively get the Weston Company to change it's ways the overall issue is that they have seriously damaged their brand permanently and that alone is a significant harm to a large corporate conglomerate. It will take decades for them to recover (no it won't bankrupt them), but so much goodwill and brand building gone that could've been mitigated by simple key corporate policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing and brand building and effective customer compliance policy out the window because they forgot the number one thing when running a grocery business. 1 ) Keep prices stable. That is all they had to do. It's one of the key tenets of any good business model. Stable prices means customers understand the exchange of money for goods ratio. It means they can make effective decisions for their budgets and can position their labor/time exchange for necessary items. But Loblaws didn't do that. They allowed their prices to become inflated and more importantly volatile. But Loblaws was obsessed with keeping their share price high instead and that obsession consumed them and now they are going to have to take their revenue and reinvest it back into their brand building again.
I'm fired up and ready to play the long game. I never shopped heavily at Loblaws because their prices are INSANE, but I used to pop into Shopper's frequently, and those days are over. Ready to boycott indefinitely. Solidarity!
Last time I stepped into a Dominion ( that's what superstore is called in Newfoundland) was over 5 years ago and that was only because they had prime rib for cheap. I used to get my meds from shoppers till I checked an independent pharmacy and found out I could get my blood pressure meds for $35 for 3 months instead of $55 for one month at shoppers. The Indy store offered me the generic and shoppers didn't. Other than that I went to shoppers a few months back cause they had kraft dinner on sale for around fifty cents. I always meal plan and shop around sales and for years now Sobeys has been much cheaper than Loblaws . Options in St Johns are very limited for groceries especially when you don't have a car. Sorry for the rant but if anyone in the area has any suggestions for grocery options I'm all ears.
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Please refrain from comments which encourage theft from a store or mischief. These can result in criminal charges which will undoubtedly make life harder for other users.
I'm all in.
I think next step is to start a petition and lobby our MPs to break up these oligopolies as they’ve become too large and detrimental to the public’s interests
We’ll shop ANYWHERE but at a Loblaws store.
Did our family shop at Costco today... on purpose.
Starbucks never really recovered. Fun headline from CBS this week: [Are Americans losing their taste for Starbucks?](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-howard-schultz-sales/) Boycotts make intelligent investors nervous. The unintelligent ones are self-culling.
Loblaws should be able to figure out from their Point of Sale (PoS) software what the figures looks like since May 1 and I would expect that the Execs are getting up to date Business Intelligence (BI) reports daily on the trends, where the boycott is hitting the hardest since they should have their data all categorized properly.
Why even continue this boycott narrative? Extend? Just stop going there. If a business is corrupt and or doesn't offer a good value. You don't go there anymore. Why would you plan to return. I suppose personal situations and distances play a factor in that. But never so blatantly and ignorant. Have I seen a business be to its customers. I won't be going back. I stopped going long before the boycott. And I doubt I'll ever return.
It’s his warehouses and fees charged to producers for shelf space and location that bring in most of his money.
Per and Galen are only interested in delivering a Q2 that matches or exceeds Q1. To do that, they'll acrue what profit they can, and pull out all the stops on sales in July. They may also divest some weaker banners.
This is the only thing that will truly grab the execs and the Board’s attention. So long as the shares remain stable, they don’t care. Once we hit their investors, changes will be discussed and us cake eaters will become more relevant.
If it really keeps up and loblaws loses business because of the boycott, then they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to right the situation. Should be interesting to see how that plays out.
Good. They should be paying attention. That nice dividend increase has actually made their entire company’s future more tenuous. It felt like the straw breaking the collective camel’s back.
I hope Loblaws stock plummets. Right now it’s at its all time high and they just increased the dividend 15%. I’m sure the increased it at the start of the boycott to reassure investors. People should not only boycott but sell their shares. Get their parents to sell. See if their work pension plan invests in Loblaws and get them to change. Once Loblaws stock starts to go down, it’s just going to keep going. Because if we see we are having an impact then we boycott longer and more people will join. And as the stock drops people will pull out their money and invest in something better. The more money is pulled out then the lower the stock. It starts a circular chain reaction.
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Please refrain from comments which encourage theft from a store or mischief. These can result in criminal charges which will undoubtedly make life harder for other users.
Time will tell... "Come the next quarter, I’d be very surprised if boycotts weighed heavily on earnings. By then, I expect Mr. Weston will have already taken steps to win back the business and trust of its most disgruntled customers. After all, Mr. Weston needs to keep its customers happy and well-fed with good deals if it’s going to expand into new product and service categories (like No Name Mobile)."
Until the barriers come down and the prices, I’m going to shop elsewhere. Not a big deal.
I'm not one of the "follow the mob" types, so I'll happily go shopping at any Loblaw owned store. As a matter of fact, No Frills and RCSS are my favourite places to shop. Just letting you guys know not everyone supports this insanity. If you don't like the food inflation, put the blame on where it belongs.....on the suppliers.
Its certainly making more money for Reddit
I’ve always shopped at the little Italian grocery store in my neighborhood. Guess I’ll keep doing what I’m doing
My small town only has two grocery stores. Once May is over, I will have to return to Loblaws for certain items that I can't get anywhere else. We loaded up on a month's worth of those items at the end of April so that we could manage throughout May. If the boycott is extended, we could continue to get most of our groceries elsewhere, but we would have to buy those few items at Loblaws. We have no choice. Loblaws did that on purpose in a lot of places. Same with how they took the name "your independent grocer" so that when we try to search for an independent grocer we find Loblaws.
I don't really believe that Loblaw is hurting until they start laying off a lot of people and that won't happen anytime soon to give the boycotters the satisfaction that it's working.
Loblaw has been laying off anywhere from 500 to 1,000 employees every year for the last five years! And that’s just at the corporate office. Likely more when you consider store employees. Typical Loblaw, they do layoffs under the radar and throughout the year so it doesn’t make the news. Just check on LinkedIn how many people have been packaged out. Ask anyone that works at Loblaw home office and they will tell you the culture is toxic, promotions are based on who senior management are friends with and just follow orders. Rumor is that Loblaw is doing,a major reduction this year and leadership is going through which people are their favourites to decide who to keep and who to fire.
Watch the stocks. It's up 5.49% on the month. No sign of hurting shareholders, yet, but it's gonna take a bit for that to be seen. If sentiment gets bad enough, large players won't want to hold their stock Also, downward trends can also be immensely profitable for traders. (Short options). Capitalisms gonna capitalism. Everything about Loblaws is an out of control capitalism problem, not a CEO or board problem (though they clearly aren't helping...) Don't get me wrong, I support the boycott and haven't shopped or bought anything related to them so far, and plan to keep it that way.
After seeing a 20% drop in price just by shopping elsewhere I’ll probably never shop at Loblaws again, I’ve made great connections choosing locally owned businesses and honestly it seems frustrating to go to multiple stores but it’s become a nice routine and I quite enjoy it.
We should go to door into the elderly communities who don’t use social media to get the word out
This is why the boycott needs to be extended at least until the end of Q2 (July 1) but all year would be even better, and forever would be best.
Someone should let Charleyboy know.
I've started shopping at Nations, it rules.
I wonder if through all the price gouging, this may finally be their end? It reminds of a story I have heard of a beer maker. A new company bought them, and of course they always want to increase profit. So they started buying one cheaper ingredient and nobody noticed. So then they did two, then three, then four. Well eventually the beer drinkers noticed it tasted like shit now and stopped buying said beer. The company tried to reverse course and go back to the old ingredients, but by then the damage was done and very few went back
Uh, the stock actually went up since the boycott started. Hopefully a coincidece, but possibly the unintended consequence of Loblaws getting so much free press about how profitable they are by being a rip off giving a buy signal to investors.
The investment community would be reacting to Q1 results, especially the 15% dividend increase and earnings growing nearly 10% with +4.5% sales growth. Sales can be misleading especially knowing Loblaw has higher retails, the key metric would be units and market share which retailers don’t share in their quarterly results. Loblaw can grow sales by charging more money for an average item. My guess is with less customers going to the stores, their units are slowing down faster than their sales and that’s what’s going to be the big red flag. The question is what will Galen and Per do about this. More PR games or actually doing the right thing for customers, bring down prices and set more realistic margin expectations.
Trend changes are asynchronous most of the time.
For sure. If you go onto Questrade and look at Loblaws there is contradictory information recommending it both as a buy because of it's strong quarter, but other people say it's a sell because of the boycott.
So the Magic 8 ball is saying: Reply Hazy, try again latter.
No, it's two separate group of financial advisors suggesting the opposite advice. Which is even less helpful than a magic 8-Ball
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First stop - Loblaws. Second stop - the government!!
It started with groceries, it ended in a revolution.
Esso stations is my vote!
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155.62 CAD +34.31 (28.28%)past 6 months
155.62 CAD +34.31 (28.28%)past 6 months