Costco's Big Change Has Customers Feeling Extremely Uneasy
For longtime Costco membership holders, it seems as though the old guard of Costco’s past has long since departed, leaving in its wake room for new ideas and a change in leadership to boot. And now, after nearly 40 years of holding the role of CFO at Costco, Richard Galanti will be stepping down and ultimately replaced by Kroger’s CFO, Gary Millerchip. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Galanti was crucial to the discount retailer's growth over the years—a sentiment that was echoed by others in the industry, including Chuck Grom at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors.
“Richard Galanti is the face of the company for a lot of people,” Grom said. “I’ve covered Costco for 20 years, I’ve done 80 conference calls, give or take, and Galanti has overwhelmingly led those calls.”
News of Galanti’s resignation quickly spread online, and as one would expect, plenty of Costco customers were not happy with the announcement. In the famously popular Costco subreddit, customers were quick to point out the downsides of adopting Kroger's now former CFO, with some people claiming that Kroger has “been garbage for a while,” and “this isn’t a good sign for Costco.”
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Over the recent years, Costco’s sales have held strong, even while other retailers struggled to keep up with changing consumer behaviors and online shopping in general. Costco raked in the benefits during the pandemic while shoppers stocked up on essential goods in a hurry, a demand that remained relatively healthy over the years the years to follow.
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Galanti is expected to continue to advise the company through January 2025 as Millerchip settles into his new role. And while the future path of the company under the command of Millerchip at this point is still uncertain, there’s one thing membership holders are clinging to for dear life: the $1.50 hot dog combo.
"I won't mince words and waste time. He better not fk with the hot dogs," one user wrote in response to the news shared to the Costco subreddit. "The hotdog will be the canary," another chimed in.
And if those aren’t words worth taking seriously, then Millerchip certainly has his work cut out for him. The price of Costco’s hot dog and soda combo has faithfully remained the same since the '80s, and a price increase today could lead to an all-out class war that will be talked about in textbooks for generations to come.
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