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After years of presence on the island, Canadian warehouse retailer Cost.U.Less has announced that they will be closing their location in Willemstad, Curaçao on February 22nd. The store’s management has cited economic reasons as argument for the decision and employees have already been informed. While Cost.U.Less focused on the sale of American brand products, its offering is not considered essential to the quality of life on the island, but the closure does leave about fifty locals without employment. Like that, the situation once again highlights the importance of local business and local production for small islands like Curaçao.
Decision made in Canada
Of course, we don’t mean to say that local companies and projects are immune to bankruptcy and economic troubles, because they aren’t. No company is. But when a foreign company is concerned, especially a large foreign company, the decision-making is not done on the island. Therefore, the risk of closure is considerably higher, as the decision-makers are likely to only weigh financial and economic reasons for such decisions. The incentive for such parties to take more social and environmental arguments into account is logically smaller than when a local party is concerned. This is not to say that Cost.U.Less did not think about the social consequences of the closure of its Willemstad location, we don’t know, but the situation does raise the topic.
“These kinds of decision are extremely difficult for us, because they have serious consequences for the members of our team [in Curaçao] that have worked hard all these years to provide our customers an excellent service”, says Kevin Proctor, President of The North West Company, about his employer’s decision to shut down the store in Curaçao. As far as we know, all of the current employees will be paid until February 28th, after which they will be paid a cessation allowance. This is a one-time payment in cash that the employer must pay to its employee when that person's employment ends. This payment is calculated based on the number of years of service of the employee.
Restart under new ownership
The fact that Cost.U.Less had decided to close their Willemstad store doesn’t necessarily mean that from February 22nd, no more American brands will be sold on the island. Rumor goes that two parties have already expressed interest in acquiring the location. One of them is a Chinese entrepreneur who already runs five supermarkets on the island, while the other party is not known to us. The latter allegedly considers the warehouse into an event venue.
The announced closure of the store might also present an opportunity for local entrepreneurs, for example to turn the warehouse into a more locally sourced, sustainable and socially involved operation, though we have no knowledge of the company’s current state. Seeing as The North West Company has stated that “exploitation of the store in Curaçao was unfortunately no longer economically feasible”, it might be too much of a risk for an ambitious local entrepreneur or company.
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The basis for this article was originally published on www.curacao.nu and others in January 2023.
