Costco Company History Essay

Introduction

Costco Wholesale Corporation better known as Costco operates an international chain of membership warehouses. Costco prides itself on carrying the top brand names products at a greatly lower price than you would find at retail stores or wholesalers. Each Costco warehouse carries no more than 4,000 products that include but are not limited to: groceries, appliances, toys, sporting goods, books, electronics, apparel, furniture, beauty supplies and jewelry. Before we can begin to analyze Costco we must first understand its history.

Price Club History

In 1975 after being forced out of FedMart a retail chain he helped found, Sol Price pioneered the concept of the warehouse store. He and his son Robert Price raised $2.5 million dollars to open the first warehouse store that

Brotman to open the first Costco warehouse in Seattle, Washington. By 1985 Costco had expanded into Canada. Costco introduced the sale of fresh meat and in-store bakery in 1987. In 1993 Costco agrees to merge with PriceClub. The next year in 1994 Costco opened the doors to a new store in Korea. In 1995 Costco introduced its own private label known as Kirkland Signature. That same year Costco changed its name to Costco Wholesale

According to Appendix A which was taken from Costco’s 10Q filing for the quarter ended May 10, 2015 total revenue to date was $80.421 billion of which 2.17% came from membership fee and the remainder coming from net sales. This same filing indicates that Costco’s net income is $1.610 billion. According to Appendix B which was taken from the Costco’s Annual Report filed for the year ended August 31, 2014 indicates that Net Sales were $110.212 billion while Net Income was 2.058 billion. Both net sales and net income have increased since