Dr. Daniel Schneider, Couche-Tard’s CEO, says it’s well behind his company, and given the latest figures, he is optimistic that that they are probably behind the other major retailers too.
We’ve been talking to others in the industry who are coming out with mostly positive (results) right now, and we are just one of them, but we feel like we are the lowest of the low, which I will say is a modest promise – since you asked.
So, for the most part, we feel like we are on top of it. We feel like we were a bit ahead of it and have some of the lowest unemployment rates that we’ve had in the last ten years, in Canada and in Mexico.
Dr. Daniel Schneider, Couche-Tard CEO
When you start paying above $40 and above, there’s a reason why you have a real problem. Now, we start at $29.99 and above, but we’ve seen a benefit in volume from folks coming up to us instead of going to the grocery stores and convenience stores.
We are very pleased about it and the loyalty of that customer because we can assure, no to us, but a certain percentage of those (sales) they will not be back in 2019. We just kept them, made them our customers. We love that. They liked it, they stuck with us. They will be customer for a long time.
So, we are not sitting here saying that every adult in Canada knows what we do and they want to keep coming to us. I don’t think, for example, that a lot of women I know know what we do and they want to keep coming to us. They are so used to doing it themselves and then they come to us to be done. And we love it. So, it’s a win-win. They will continue to buy from us but they will buy less of them, maybe. And that’s okay. We make our margins there. They buy them a little less and therefore our margins are a little better. And we will continue to do that.