Short Information About Costco Wholesale Corporation
A corporation, Costco warehouse is doing a retailing business as Costco. Costco is the second biggest retailing company after Walmart. It has ranked on the 14th number in Fortune 500 in terms of the biggest corporations of the US by total revenue. Costco’s headquarter is in Washington. Costco is a multinational company, it has around 776 stores in different countries.
History/Historical evolution:
On September 15, 1983, James Sinegal and Jeffery H. Brotman opened the first Costo warehouse in Seattle, USA. Both of the founders of Costco had enough knowledge about retailing. Later on, in October, Costco opened their second warehouse in Portland and the third one in Spokane. Currently, they have, 776 stores worldwide. After a huge success, Costco agreed to merge with the company Price club, a warehouse company in 1993. That amalgamation of these two warehouse companies was called ‘PriceCostco’. Later on, in 1994, Price club left Costco, so all of the warehouses named as ‘PriceCostco’ were rebranded as Costco in 1997.
Competitors:
In retailing, there is a huge competition between the retailing companies, day by day, every retailing company is getting better and they are trying to surpass the other retailing company. So, Costco has also too many competitors in retailing, the biggest competitors of Costco are Walmart and Amazon, as we know Walmart is already on the top in retailing and Amazon is gradually growing, it might surpass Costco in the near future. The other competitors of Costco are The Home Depot, Tesco, BestBuy, Target, The Kroger Company, and many others.
Positioning and Cues:
The main strategy of Costco is cost leadership, they are providing high-quality products at a very low price, not only Costco is using Cost leadership but, other retailers like Walmart, Amazon, etc. All are using this strategy to attract most of the customers. Costco also provides membership cards to the customers to provide discounts. The other cue they are using under the brand ‘Kirkland Signature’ this brand provides vitamins, liquids, and some other kitchen groceries. Under this brand, they have earned high goodwill among the public. Another cue they are using is easy access, now customers can easily communicate with the company to exchange the product or to apply for a service.
Differentiation & Positioning:
Unlike other retailers, Costco’s main concern is not only on groceries, Costco is also providing different and diverse services like auto buying, home insurance, identity protection, home loans, personal checks, online investing, personal health insurance, travel services. Costco has a very diverse product and service line, this is what makes Costco unique. They have also the brand, Kirkland signature to position liquids and vitamins.
Conclusion:
There is still a lot more to describe such a big retailing company, Costco. Costco has to work on their online buying and selling, It’s a little bit complicated. Everything else Costco is providing, I don’t think so that other retailers do provide those services. Costco is also considered as employee Friendly Corporation when the employees are happy, they will treat customers in a better way and they will complete their task or duty efficiently and timely, being employee friendly is also a solid point. From the above discussion, you must have an idea about why Costco is my favorite retailer.
