Costco Wholesale Corporation is a membership warehouse club with 671 warehouses in nine countries on four continents. The company opened in 1976 under the Price Club name in San Diego, California. The first Costco warehouse opened in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. In 1993, Costco and Price Club merged under the name PriceCostco. In January 1997, after the spin-off of most of its non-warehouse assets to Price Enterprises, Inc., the Company changed its name to Costco Companies, Inc. On August 30, 1999, the Company reincorporated from Delaware to
Washington and changed its name to Costco Wholesale Corporation. I am long-time member of Costco and appreciate their competitive pricing on a wide range of merchandise. Costco is also well known
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The data enables easier visualization of the proportions of separate accounts. Vertical analysis results in common-size financial statements that enable easy comparisons of financial data among companies and the industry sector. Overall, Costco’s vertical analysis is rather uneventful. No percentage moved further than 0.1% when comparing the years of 2013 & 2014. While uneventful, there are still a few areas I would like to analyze.
Merchandise Costs or Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
The most significant percentage that stands out in the vertical analysis is the Merchandise Costs. The Merchandise Costs for Costco equals 89.3% of Net Sales. This number seemed high to me, so I searched through Costco competitors to check their merchandise costs percentage. Walmart is 75% and Target is 71%. From a consumer standpoint Costco is the place to shop since their markup is only 10.7%; less than half of their major competitors. This also shows Costco needs to sale over twice as much inventory as their competitors to earn the same amount of profit.
Interest
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Preopening expenses are related to new warehouses, new regional offices and other startup operations. In 2014 Costco opened or relocated 30 warehouses. This information correlates directly with the increase in Plants & Property which will be shown in the horizontal analysis.
Membership Fees
Also of note, without membership fees Costco would be in the red. Membership fees contribute 2.2% to Costco’s total revenue and without membership fees, Costco’s Net Income would be -0.3%. As a prior member (when I was in the states), I used to complain about the membership fee. Now, I see that it plays a vital role in Costco’s annual earnings.
Horizontal Analysis (Refer to Table 2)
Horizontal analysis, also known as trend analysis, shows the changes of the financial data over a period of time. The data is used to determine increases or decrease that have taken place. The data is expressed in dollar and percentage
As a whole, building a Costco in the Longview/Kelso area would be exponential in improving this area's economic state. Being the most productive and profitable warehouse club chain in America, Costco building in Longview/Kelso would bring more business to this area and have a good effect on the economic state of our cities (Longo). Almost anywhere there is a Costco Warehouse, there is life and sustainability. Portland, Vancouver, and Camas thrive and they all have something in common; they have a Costco. Citizens love having a Costco nearby and Longview/Kelso would gain much from having one. One thing Longview/Kelso would gain from having a Costco, would be that Costco brings business into towns. Next to an average Costco, a customer could
There are ten elements needed to survive a zombie apocalypse: a steady food supply, clean water, medicine, transportation, gas, a defense system, a sturdy shelter, a safe place to sleep within the shelter, weapons, and simple tools. Costco supplies all of these items. According an article in The Concordian, “If you asked 100 people where they would hide during a zombie apocalypse, 98 would say Costco. Costco is a vast market that sells basically anything you would need to live there permanently” (Menexis). Unfortunately that still leaves those two out of one hundred people that disagree. Those people say that Costco would be an unwise place to be during the apocalypse because of its sheer size. They state that the massive size of a Costco store is too big for a person or even small group of people to defend. While this argument has a logical line of thinking behind it, there are several factors that render this viewpoint invalid. Costco does not need a huge defense system because it is literally a huge warehouse. This means that Costco is essentially a huge concrete box with two ope...
To begin with, some store history may be helpful. In 1914, Anna Albrecht opened a small store, Albrecht Discount, in the town of Essen, Germany. By 1948, her sons had taken over the business and had expanded it to four locations. In 1962, the store’s name changed from Albrecht Discount to Aldi. In 1976, Aldi makes their debut in the United States, opening a store in Southwestern Iowa. Today, in 2014, Aldi has 1,300 locations in the United States and 4,000 locations worldwide (Aldiuscareers.com). In 1962, Wal-Mart opens in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1983, Sam Walton opened the first Sam’s Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma. By 1988, Walton had opened the first Wal-Mart Supercenter in Washington, Missouri. Wal-Mart went global in 1991, opening a Sam’s Club in Mexico City, Mexico. Today, in 2014, Wal-Mart employs 2.2 million associates, serves 200 million customers, with 11,000 stores in twenty-seven countries (Corporate.walmart.com).
Costco Wholesale Corporation was an uncommon type of retailers called wholesale clubs. These clubs differentiated themselves from other retailer by requiring annual membership purchase. Especially in case of Costco, their target market is wealthier clientele of small business owners and middle class shoppers. They are now known as a low cost or discount retailer where they sell products in bulk with limited brands and their own brand. The company is competing with stores like Wal-Mart, SAM’s, BJ’s, and Sears.
...nce 2008), [CITE: #7?] it adversely impacted Dollar General’s profitability given their higher purchasing costs and lower margins relative to other categories. Analysts estimated that Dollar General’s margins fell from 7.4% in 2008 to 7.1% of net sales in 2013. [2]
Costco Wholesale Corporation is an international chain of membership warehouses operating on the concept that offering members lower prices will produce high sales volume and rapid inventory turnover (“Annual Report” 4). While Costco warehouses are designed to help reduce costs for small-to-mid-sized companies, memberships are also available for individuals (“Company Profile”). The two memberships offered by Costco include Business and Gold Sta...
Their boards are similar in member size (Walmart with 12 and Costco with 13). Both companies also advocate for a separate CEO and Chairman. They also have a similar number of meetings per year (Walmart 6 and Costco 5) (Spencer 4). Both companies also utilize executive sessions and Costco, like Walmart, has at least two executive sessions a year for independent directors (Costco 11). Finally Costco also has a code of ethics that applies to all employees, directors and executives. They
Promotion: Costco doesn’t have any conventional marketing/ promotion strategies like their competitors as they are not big on advertising. They email and mail their members flyers and product descriptions which help them maintain their customer retention. However, they don’t actively advertise to new customers, primarily relying on their current customers to advertise by word of mouth like Kimberley Peterson, the
Nguyen, A. (2013, April 12). Costco: From Concept to $1 Billion in Three Years. Costco Wholesales Corp. . Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://lindaperry.us/aec3033/AdNguyen2.pdf
Let start with Costco. Costco is Wholesale, Retail Corporation which operates an international chain of membership distribution centers that provides quality, brand name merchandise at noticeably more affordable rates than a conventional wholesale or retail sources. Costco 's warehouses display the largest and great product categories such as groceries, candy, appliances, television and media, automotive supplies, tires, toys, hardware, sporting goods, jewelry, watches, cameras, books, house wares, apparel, health and beauty aids, tobacco, furniture, office supplies and office Their ability to distribute the cut rate from their operating proficiencies in supply chain management and cash flow, permits them to offers items at discounted rate and a lower price than their competitors. For Costco the meaning of being the low-cost provider while also differentiating from the competitors is ambiguous at best. Costco’s CEO, Jim Sinegal, is certain that low priced, and the high value merchandises are exactly what is needed maintain and achieve a staying power in the industry.
In the warehouse segment, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club competes harshly with Costco. Costco has fewer warehouses but greater sales and revenues. Costco customers also shop at Costco more frequently than Sam’s Club customers and, on average, spend more each visit as well. Costco’s dominance may be the result of better innovation. Costco offers luxury items and was the first to sell fresh meat and produce, and gasoline. This is important because innovation is a key factor in assessing competitors in an industry.
Costco has many competitors with the primary two being Sam’s Club, a wholesale business being managed by Walmart, and BJ’s wholesale club. Sam’s Club is offering the same services as Costco. They offer their customers lower prices than traditional stores and like Costco they sell their products in bulk to keep members interested. What makes them a threat to Costco is the cost of becoming a member to shop at their stores. For Costco’s basic membership, known as a Business membership, a price increase had to occur to outweigh price increases from their suppliers. This led to the Costco Business membership annual fee being set at $55. When looking into the case study assembled by Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland (2014) they point out that Sam’s Club is able to offer similar benefits ...
Each competitor 's current ratio, quick ratio, and cash ratio are able to be found in this exhibit for the year ended in 2015. McDonald’s currently has a cash ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 1.20, and a 1.52. Starbucks has a cash ratio of 0.44, a quick ratio of 0.64, and a current ratio of 1.19. Finally, the Dunkin Brand Group Inc. has a cash ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74, and a current ratio of 1.25. When looking at these ratios one is able to find that compared to its competitors, Starbucks is less liquid than McDonald 's and Dunkin Brand Group
This chart shows the net revenues and net earnings for the years of 2013-2009. As you observe the net revenues have been consistent in the 18,000 for at least 3 years in a row. This is a good trend for the Kraft Food Group. The trend for the net earnings is sporadic. The net earnings is also called the bottom line. This shows the amount of money that is left over after paying all of the expenses. Kraft Food Group needs to cut down on its expenses.
Every company has some kind of Revenue and they all have costs that are associated with running the company. It is also true that if a company wants to increase their Revenue, their costs will increase too. It is every company’s goal to maximize revenue and either through Production or Services, and minimize cost. These things are easy to figure out, but actually identifying the production and figuring out how it will increase or decrease with change is very difficult.