46 Fun Facts About Costco

In which Washington city is Costco's worldwide headquarters?

Costco's worldwide headquarters is in Issaquah, Washington, on a campus built beside a working warehouse so buyers can walk over and see how merchandise is selling.

In which city did Costco open its very first warehouse?

Seattle got the first Costco in September 1983, closely modelled on Price Club, the warehouse chain where co-founder Jim Sinegal had risen to vice president.

Costco's second warehouse opened a month after its first, in which city?

Portland, Oregon, got the second Costco in October 1983 and Spokane the third that December, the start of a sprint from nothing to $3 billion in sales in under six years.

What is the Kirkland Signature house brand named after?

The town where Costco's HQ used to be, Kirkland, Washington, named the one label that in 1995 replaced a scatter of separate house brands for soda, detergent and even dog food.

Costco's CEO confirmed in 2016 that which brand makes Kirkland Signature batteries?

Duracell makes them: Craig Jelinek told an Atlanta TV station in 2016 that Costco simply buys the batteries and repackages them under its own label.

What did Jim Sinegal vow to do to a colleague if the hot dog price went up?

Kill him, more or less: 'I will kill you. Figure it out,' Sinegal told Craig Jelinek, who found savings elsewhere and kept the combo at $1.50.

Until 2016, which was the only credit card brand accepted at US Costco warehouses?

American Express was the only card Costco took for 16 years; in 2016 the chain dropped it, began accepting only Visa and moved its store card to Citi.

Jim Sinegal co-founded Costco with which attorney from an old Pacific Northwest retailing family?

Jeffrey Brotman took the idea from his father, a Tacoma clothing retailer who had seen a warehouse club on the West Coast and told him, 'You should do this.'

Warehouse-club pioneer Sol Price worked as what before opening his first store?

Lawyer: Price's clients were jewellery wholesalers, and their trade with a members-only store in Los Angeles gave him the idea for FedMart.

Price Club, Costco's future merger partner, opened its first store in 1976 in which city?

San Diego's Morena Boulevard store was the first Price Club in 1976, and Costco, which absorbed the chain, now dates its own history from that opening.

Price Club's first store was a converted airplane hangar once owned by which famous tycoon?

Howard Hughes once owned the hangar on Morena Boulevard, and the building never left the business: shoppers can still walk its aisles today as a Costco.

Price Club's first memberships, in 1976, were sold only to which customers?

Small-business owners were the only members at first, and the club lost $750,000 in its first year, so it let in credit-union members and hospital and utility workers too.

What name did the merged Costco and Price Club company use at first?

PriceCostco was the merged company's name from 1993, but the partnership soon frayed: within a year the Price family had left to run a spin-off of their own.

Before merging with Costco, Price Club turned down a merger offer from which retail giant?

Price Club rejected a merger approach from Walmart and chose Costco instead; Walmart's own warehouse chain, Sam's Club, went on to become Costco's chief US rival.

What is Costco's standard household membership called?

Gold Star is the card for ordinary households, a group the early warehouse clubs let in once they saw how much buying clout the extra members would bring.

Alongside groceries and televisions, Costco sells which funeral item to its members?

Caskets are sold with the price shown up front, which Costco pitches as sparing families surprise costs at an emotional time; it even offers military designs for each service branch.

Jim Sinegal began his retail career in what job?

Grocery bagger was Jim Sinegal's first retail job, taken as a student in the mid-1950s at a discount store whose founder became his mentor; he later ran Costco for nearly three decades.

Which city's Costco became the world's largest warehouse after a 2015 expansion?

Salt Lake City's store took the title by bolting a business centre onto an ordinary warehouse, a first-of-its-kind hybrid of about 235,000 square feet.

As of 2019, the smallest Costco, at under 77,000 sq ft, was in which city?

Juneau's store survives from a 1990s test of half-size warehouses; Costco decided the small format does not work elsewhere, but it suits Alaska's isolated capital.

In 2011, Costco's highest-volume store in the world was in which city?

Seoul's store was the chain's top seller, Jim Sinegal said in 2011, crediting a dense city whose shoppers love American goods, about a third of what it sold.

Under a company rule, no regular item may be marked up more than what percentage over cost?

Costco caps markups at 14% on brand-name goods and 15% on its house label, and leans on membership fees rather than fat margins for its profit.

Roughly how many distinct products does a typical Costco carry?

A typical Costco carries about 3,700 distinct products, a sliver of an ordinary big-box range, because it stocks only one or two versions of each item and sells far more of them.

In the early 2020s, which organisation's two titles outranked Costco Connection in US magazine circulation?

Only AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin print more copies; Costco Connection mails about 15 million a month, reach enough that celebrities now line up for its cover.

Costco began selling rotisserie chickens in 1994 amid the rising popularity of which restaurant chain?

Boston Market's rotisserie craze in the early 1990s inspired Costco to add its own rotisserie chicken in 1994; the birds became such a traffic driver that Costco later built its own poultry plant.

In 2019 Costco opened its own vertically integrated poultry factory in which state?

The Lincoln Premium Poultry plant in Fremont, Nebraska, opened in 2019 to process around two million chickens a week and keep the rotisserie chicken price steady.

Sinegal described Costco's constantly rotating stock as what kind of atmosphere?

Treasure-hunt is the term Costco uses for its rotating stock of limited-time items; the idea is urgency, buy the deal now because it may be gone on the next visit.

Before Costco began making its own, which brand supplied its food-court hot dogs?

Hebrew National's kosher franks were dropped when suppliers could not keep up with demand, so Costco began making its own Kirkland Signature dogs to hold the combo price.

In 2013 US Costco food courts dropped Coca-Cola fountain drinks in favour of which company's products?

Costco's US food courts switched to Pepsi in 2013 after Coca-Cola raised its prices, helping hold the hot-dog combo price; Coca-Cola products returned to the food courts in 2025.

Which food-court item replaced the pretzel in 2009 because of slow sales?

The Churro took the pretzel's food-court slot in 2009 and lasted fifteen years before a double chocolate chunk cookie replaced it in 2024.

Which precious metal did Costco start selling online in one-ounce bars in 2023?

Gold bars went on sale in 2023 and were typically gone within hours of each restock; a Wells Fargo analysis reckoned Costco was soon moving up to $200 million of bullion a month.

As of 2024, Costco was reported to sell about half of the world's supply of which nut?

Cashews: Costco is reported to sell roughly half the world's supply, so its buying decisions reach more than a million cashew farmers in Africa alone.

Ron Vachris, Costco's CEO from 2024, began his career in 1982 doing what job at a Price Club?

Forklift driver was a seasonal job Ron Vachris took during a college break; he stayed, and four decades of promotions from within carried him to the top of Costco.

Which Kirkland Signature product is widely reported to be Costco's best-selling item of all?

Toilet paper tops the list: Costco reportedly sells over a billion rolls a year, largely because its own-label packs cost far less per roll than the big brands.

Which satirical film features a gigantic future Costco whose greeter drones 'Welcome to Costco, I love you'?

Idiocracy sends its hero, an average man who wakes in 2505 as the smartest person alive, into the vast store to reach a time machine he hopes will take him home.

Costco's first mainland China warehouse opened in 2019 in which city, closing early over crowds?

Shanghai's Minhang store drew such crowds on day one that signs warned of a three-hour wait just to park, and a nearby school told parents pick-up would be badly delayed.

Costco's first New Zealand warehouse opened in 2022 in which city?

The Auckland warehouse at Westgate opened in September 2022; a local licensing-trust monopoly on alcohol retail in West Auckland means the store cannot sell alcohol.

In 2017 a court ordered Costco to pay which jeweler over $19 million for rings sold as its namesake style?

Tiffany & Co. sued over signs calling unbranded rings 'Tiffany'; an appeals court threw the award out in 2020, saying Costco shoppers knew better, and the two settled in 2021.

As of 2025, which Costco tier costs twice the basic fee and pays back 2% of most purchases?

Executive members pay $130 a year instead of $65 and earn a 2% reward capped at $1,250, so the upgrade pays for itself once a household spends $3,250 a year.

In which country did Costco open its first warehouse outside the United States?

Canada came first, with a warehouse in Burnaby, British Columbia, in 1985; the idea was so new that the national evening news ran a report explaining what a wholesale club was.

The first Costco Business Center opened in 1996 in which Washington city near Everett?

Lynnwood's warehouse was converted once a new Costco opened in nearby Everett, refitted to serve restaurants, offices and corner shops instead of households.

Costco's 'exit greeters' compare the contents of a shopper's cart with what?

Your receipt is the reference: the greeter at the exit compares the items in the cart, lower rack included, against the receipt's line items to catch scanning errors in either direction.

Costco spent over $22 million backing Washington's Initiative 1183 in 2011 to end the state monopoly on what?

Liquor sales were the prize: voters sided with Costco and dismantled state controls that had stood since Prohibition, in what was then Washington's costliest initiative campaign.

Costco keeps its overheads down partly by buying no what?

Outside advertising is skipped, a habit inherited from Price Club, whose founder advertised only new store openings and let satisfied members spread the word instead.

Until 2024, Kirkland Signature House Blend coffee was co-branded with which coffee chain?

Starbucks put its name beside Kirkland's on the bag, one of several big brands willing to share a label in exchange for a place on Costco's shelves.

At Costco headquarters, where does the CEO work, just like every other employee there?

A cubicle, slightly larger than the rest, is all the boss gets, and senior officers are expected to spend most of their time out visiting warehouses.

Innovel, which Costco bought for $1bn in 2020, is what kind of company?

Logistics is Innovel's business: the former Sears final-mile delivery arm gave Costco its own network for delivering and installing big-ticket items such as appliances and furniture.