In 2005, Costco replaced its first Seattle warehouse with a new warehouse on an adjacent lot. In 1997, Costco changed its name to Costco Wholesale Corporation, and all remaining Price Club locations were rebranded as Costco. In 1996, Costco moved its headquarters from Kirkland to Issaquah. PriceCostco was initially led by executives from both companies, but in 1994, the Price brothers left the company to form PriceSmart, a warehouse club chain in Central America and the Caribbean unrelated to the current Costco. PriceCostco boasted 206 locations generating $16 billion in annual sales.
The combined company took the name PriceCostco, and memberships became universal, meaning that a Price Club member could use their membership to shop at Costco and vice versa. Costco's business model and size were similar to those of Price Club, which made the merger more natural for both companies. In 1993, Costco and Price Club agreed to merge operations themselves after Price declined an offer from Walmart to merge Price Club with their warehouse store chain, Sam's Club. The company was initially headquartered at its first warehouse in Seattle, but moved its headquarters to Kirkland in 1987. A second store opened in Portland in October, and a third in Spokane in December 1983. He began his retail involvement as a grocery bagger. During this time, small businesses were given an 8% or 9% discount on inventories. Sinegal had started in wholesale distribution by working for Sol Price at FedMart Brotman, an attorney from an old Seattle retailing family, had also been involved in retail distribution from an early age. Brotman opened the first Costco warehouse in Seattle on September 15, 1983. The company also announced plans to open stores in Spain and Portugal through their Canadian subsidiary. Price Club expanded into Canada in 1986, opening a store in Montreal, and followed with a Mexico City store in 1992 as part of a joint venture with hypermarket chain Controladora Comercial Mexicana. The company launched an initial public offering in 1980 and expanded to 24 locations in the Southwest and 1.1 million members by early 1986. Price Club's sales model was catered towards small business owners, selling items in bulk for a discounted price at no-frills outlets that were accessible only with an annual membership fee. The store, known as Costco Warehouse #401, is still in operation today.
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Price Club was among the first retail warehouse clubs, beginning with its Morena Boulevard store inside a series of old airplane hangars once owned by Howard Hughes. It was founded three months earlier by Sol Price and his son, Robert, following a dispute with the new owners of FedMart, Price's previous membership-only discount store. Ĭostco's earliest predecessor, Price Club, opened its first store on July 12, 1976, on Morena Boulevard in San Diego, California. As of September 2022, Costco has 839 warehouses worldwide: 578 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 107 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 31 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 17 in Korea, 14 in Taiwan, 13 in Australia, four in Spain, two each in France and China, one in Iceland, and one in New Zealand. Through mergers, however, Costco's corporate history dates back to 1976, when its former competitor Price Club was founded in San Diego, California. The company opened its first warehouse (the chain's term for its retail outlets) in Seattle in 1983. Ĭostco's worldwide headquarters are in Issaquah, Washington, an eastern suburb of Seattle, although its Kirkland Signature house label bears the name of its former location in Kirkland. In 2021, Costco was ranked #10 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. As of 2020, Costco was the third largest retailer in the world, and the world's largest retailer of choice and prime beef, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, and wine as of 2016.
Original logo (used until 1993, but carried by stores until 1997)Ĭostco Wholesale Corporation ( doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores ( warehouse club).
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