Hobby Lobby

Hobby Lobby has been among the most polarizing companies out there. Some of it goes back pretty far, but especially over the past decade or so, it seems T But first, if you're not familiar with Hobby Lobby, they are a very successful chain of nearly 1,000 stores that specializes in selling materials used in various hobbies and crafts, much Their biggest, most direct competitors would be stores They are somewhat comparable in size, but Hobby Lobby does stand out from them on the business end because un Their close control of the company is actually what allows them to make some bold moves that lead to many of these controversies. David Green is their founder and longtime CEO and however you feel about After That store would sell a lot of picture frames and David Green took notice. He eventually got together with one of They started with a $600 loan, they worked out of their garage, and Green's wife and c But it grew and after about two years they opened their first store in Oklahoma City. It was only around 300 square feet and sold a limited n One of the biggest two years later in 1975, Green got enough money together to open a second, much larger location, and that's when t By that time, one of the biggest factors be The oil market was doing really well, w David Green even tried to take advantage of this by selling some luxury items Soon after, oil prices dropped, many people lost their job, and the local economy pretty much collapsed because it turns out they were far too reliant on a single product. People could no longer afford to buy He was forced to refocus That was a pivotal point in their Today, their success comes from focusing on the customer and providing them with the best possible experience. The way they do that is by stocking a wide selection. They try to sell every piece you may need for a project so you don't have to go around to different stores. They also strive to have helpful employees, part of that involves paying them more and providing better benefits than others in their industry so they stay longer and have an overall lower turnover rate. For example, in 2020, they implemented this company-wide $17 an hour minim Also, I t It has been argued that they also strive to have at least somewhat reasonable prices, and that can be attributed to keeping their costs down. They commonly establish their stores in empty or abandoned retail space rather than making their own building, and a lot of their inventory is obtained by cheaper vendors overseas. Alright, that helps explain their appeal to the customers and how Hobby Lobby became such a successful chain of stores, despite the controversies. Now, at this point, I feel I'm going to be talking about some touchy issues, t So I want to make it clear that my intention of t I'm going to try to give a fair representation of what's been happening, and then based on your own viewpoints or beliefs or whatever else, you can take what I say, combine it with stuff that you learned from other places, and use it to form your own opinions. That was a long disclaimer, I just want you to know that if I say somet I can't believe that I have gone t David Green and the rest of All of the stores are closed on Sundays due to religious reasons. They openly say that they are committed to honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles. So just keep all of that in mind, because you will notice a reoccurring theme. The first controversy that I'm going to be talking about is their newspaper ads. During the Christmas season of 1995, David Green noticed a lack of testimony in newspapers talking about the true meaning of the holidays, and he says that he felt commissioned by God to do somet Essentially, I t So ever since, multiple times a year, during the holidays, they've taken out these full page newspaper ads with these very Christian messages. They don't even advertise the company, they're just talking about religion. The issue that many people take with they've been called politically incorrect, especially there was a big backlash against it, claiming that it quoted the founding fathers out of context and advocated for a combination of church and state. David Green claims that they've generally received minimal negative feedback wit Next up on the list is potential discrimination. There's arg Now, obviously they don't have to sell Hanukkah merchandise, but many of their stores are located in areas with large Jewish populations. So then the question becomes, why aren'they selling it there, if it seems Are they in fact discriminating against a religion different from theirs by not wanting them as customers? Those suspicions were happening for a w It was reported that a customer asked an employee if they sold any Bar Mitzvah cards, and the employee's response was to say, we don't cater to you people. Obviously an inappropriate response, but we have to remember that t Right away, Hobby Lobby apologized for the incident, and that apology was recognized and accepted by the Anti-Defamation League. Honestly, that's about the strongest evidence that I could find supporting any anti-Semitism, but it was enough to get the belief out there, so based on that, it has become a part of their public image. Okay, here we go. I wanted to put their biggest controversy right in the middle here. It has to do with contraceptives. The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, required that when a company offered a health insurance plan, that plan had to cover birth control without sharing the cost with the individual. Churches didn't have to follow it in non-profits at their own set of rules, but Hobby Lobby, being a U. S. company that generated profits, was in fact forced to follow it. However, they took issue with it because it went against their beliefs. To be clear about it, it wasn't all of the birth control that they objected to. Their big issue was with the emergency contraception, the morning after pill and certain IUDs, because they felt that it was a form of abortion. We're not going to solve anyt I mean, that family clearly believes in the principles of their faith, and if they thought that they were providing people with somet But then, the other end had some pretty big arg It is such a personal t Why should your employer have any say in those matters? Just mind your own business. Let your employees make their own decisions based on their own beliefs. Plus, there was an arg In the end, the case went to the Supreme Court, where it had a 5-4 ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby. It set a precedent that said closely held companies were 5 or fewer people owned half of it, no longer had to provide it. Very heavy stuff here. Even the Supreme Court was divided, so I am curious to hear what everyone t Moving on to their next source of controversy, which comes from the Muse See, the Green family spent hundreds of millions of dollars to open this muse C. years earlier that started collecting artifacts for it, and in 2017 it was open to the public. Already you have to be skeptical here, is it truly an educational muse That's a big debate on its own, but the bigger controversy here stems from the artifacts themselves. In short, they haven't done the best job in confirming their authenticity or where they came from. They had bought t In 2017 they paid a $3 million fine for obtaining thousands of other artifacts illegally s They've also displayed a collection of Dead Sea Scrolls that were later found to be fake. Those are just a few examples. I don't want to go too far into the chairman of that muse He didn't really know what he was doing when it came to running a muse I cannot believe that we are still going, but my final source of controversy is remaining open during the pandemic. In March of 2020, when all of the non-essential businesses were being shut down due to government mandates, Hobby Lobby was very much fighting against it. It depends on the area, but they were generally slow to shut down and then open back up very quickly. They claimed to be an essential business and then that brought even more debate. An arg So again, it's all up to interpretation. Are they truly essential or are they just looking for an excuse to irresponsibly stay open? A couple weeks later, they did t So definitely a lot of backlash from the public and their own employees regarding how they handled that whole situation. Let me know in the comments, where do you stand on all of these controversies? Imagine some people watc So any thought you have about Hobby Lobby, whether it be the controversies or the business itself, leave them in the comments. I'd