Costco Customer Base

Costco is one of the nation’s top three retailers and the world’s largest membership warehouse chain, Costco wholesale Canada operates about 80 membership warehouse clubs across Canada. The company never advertises, charges its 64 million members to shop there and doesn’t mark up any product more than 15 percent, even at this lowest profit margin, 15% for Kirkland private brand, the products were 20% lower than comparable to other brand products. Costco works with this business model and generating $93 billion in annual sales.

Every company and/or organization starts and operates to achieve a single major goal, which is normally included in the company’s mission statement. Setting a goal, however, does not translate into success on its own; it is only the fist step. Understanding market segmentation is the second most important aspect of doing business. “Sellers and advertisers want to be able to determine what the potential market is for their product or service, as well as the best ways to reach potential consumers” (Terrell, 2013). Once a goal is set, an organization first must decide if it wants to operate locally, regionally, nationally, and/or internationally, as the size of the geographic coverage has a large

The strategic objective of Costco is based on the concept of offering members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private label products in a wide range of merchandise categories while producing high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover. This rapid inventory turnover, when combined with the operating efficiencies achieved by volume purchasing, efficient distribution and reduced handling of merchandise in no-frills, self service warehouse facilities, enables Costco to operate profitably at significantly lower gross margins than traditional wholesalers, discount retailers and supermarkets. (1)

In order for Costco to stay competitive in the market and ahead of its competitors, it is essential to venture into different products and services. Costco’s main products vary, which include: groceries and frozen products, fresh meats and produce, bakery goods, beverages and liquors, health and beauty products, seasonal goods, office products, appliances and electronics. To increase Costco’s product differentiation over its competitors and increase sales, Costco began to introduce other products; such as pharmacy, gasoline, auto insurance, and a food court. In addition, extends more services to executive card members that include check printing, payroll services, identity protection, free roadside assistance with Costco’s auto insurance, and traveling benefits.

Costco is a recognized and successful retail chain including several locations, glowing feedback, and a wonderful overall reputation. Known by several audiences to be considered a “big-box” store, Costco offers various products in its stores at low, discounted prices, accompanying a membership card. Before and after researching this company, the author of this paper has heard exceptional feedback regarding the company for its initiative to keep prices low, employee morale high, and customer satisfaction to be one of its top priorities. Within this body of work, the author will dissect and discuss some of Costco’s stakeholder perspectives and how some of the perceived initiatives may help aid the company within its

Based on data found, there is a high amount of competition in the Mexican spirit market. In Mexico, Costco sells American-made whisky including: Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker (Costco Mexico, n.d.). Walmart sells American-made bourbon including: Bulleit and Jim Beam (Walmart, n.d.). Furthermore, tequila is the leading alcoholic beverage consumed with Casa Pedro Domecq Mexico SA de CV leading the market in 2014 with 13% of total market sales. The distribution channel used is producer to retailer to consumer (Spirits in Mexico, n.d.). Without local connections and proper marketing, SOA will have a hard time building a customer following.

There are many strengths of Costco’s business. One of the main strengths is customer loyalty. Last year in the U.S. and Canada, the customer membership renewal rate was ninety-one percent. The global customer membership renewal rate was eighty-eight percent. These high renewal rates

Many of Costco’s strengths are held with their low prices, limited selection, and their employees. Costco prefers to hire from within and focused on career longevity and development for their employees. It was company policy to fill at least 86 percent of its higher-level openings buy promotions from within; in actuality, the percentage ran close to 98 percent, which meant that the majority of Costco’s management team members were home grown (Gamble & Thompson Jr., 2009, p. 226). Even with their many strengths, Costco still had some weaknesses. Their warehouses appeared to be very industrial, with concrete floors and merchandise displayed on wooden pallets. Costco also relied heavily on word-of-mouth advertisement, which saved the

According to Deloitte’s 2014 Global Powers of Retailing Report, it identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for fiscal 2012 encompassing companies’ fiscal years ended through to June 2013; however, here mainly focuses on the Top 10 retailers’ analysis.

Costco Wholesale has generated a revolution in how people shop: for the first time, many Americans are willing to 'pay' for the privileges of membership to a store so they can buy its products and save money. Like Wal-Mart, Costco prides itself on its low, low prices. However, in stark contrast to Wal-Mart, Costco has also made its exemplary treatment of its employees part of its marketing and sales strategy. It advertises itself as an ethical company, a company where it is a pleasure to work. This use of its HR police as a marketing strategy has proven to be effective, particularly with its target audience. While it caters to a wide and diverse audience in terms of its product diversity, on the whole Costco's target consumer is more affluent and educated than the average consumer at a big box store like Sam's Club. Costco's target audience members are interested

Costco’s mission is, “To continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices” (Costco.com, 2018). With the Costco mission in mind, their strategy was essentially simple in terms of marketing segmentation. Originally, Price Club started with a strategy of selling goods to the small business market, but branched off and began selling to selected non-business owners. As the world's first membership warehouse club, the strategy was simple and lucrative. After the two companies merged, Costco continued with the strategy of the membership warehouse club.

Costco has grown from a single location in Seattle, Washington and is now the largest membership based retailer and currently the 6th largest overall retailer in the United States. In 2011, Costco saw a 10% increase in sales and in 2012, Costco is planning on opening 14 new store locations, three of which will be outside of the US. Costco is no longer a small local retailer but now an international company with different threats and opportunities. As the company continues to grow, it is important for Costco to understand the external threats and opportunities that will impact the company in either a positive or negative way. In order understand these forces a SLEPT analysis is used to analyze the social, legal, economical,

At Costco, VIZIO relied extensively on consumers to purchase their product without any assistance from salesman whom would either influence or steer the consumer during the sales. Because of their low brand awareness, they strategically placed their products on conspicuous display, right at the entrance at the stores, to catch the customers’ attention, but more importantly because their shoppers fell into the market segment target by VIZIO, 35+ years, wealthy, and with disposable income.

Costco Wholesale’s sales/revenue growth has been decelerating over the past few years (105.16B in 2013, 112.64 in 2014, and 116.2B in 2015) [1] but Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s growth slowed down drastically in years 2013 and 2014 and it is only picking up again in year 2015(469.16B in 2013, 476.29B in 2014, and 485.65B in 2015) [2]. Over the past few years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s net income plummeted in 2014 and recovered slightly in 2015, on the other hand, net income growth has been steadily increasing for Costco Wholesales. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Sales/Revenue is more than 4 times than that of Costco Wholesale's (485.65B for Walmart and 116.2B for Costco in year 2015) but Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s profit (net income less taxes) is more than 6 times than that of Costco’s(16.18B for walmart and 2.38B for costco for the year 2015) [1] [2]. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is somehow doing better than Costco Wholesales in that area. In the year 2004, around the time

Costco has a solid business model generating billions in revenue, yet there is still an untapped demographic that it has failed to reach because of an acceptable decision making technique called bounded rationality, which may well prove to be Costco's undoing if it continues to accept its current specific business practices as satisfactory. Costco's profitability from its current customer demographic is preventing it from making decisions to adjust services to accommodate a younger generation. Articles written and interviews on the subject point out that Costco is having difficulty pinpointing the analytical facts required for rational decision-making on how to tap into this growing market. Employing a creative