Costco Swot Analysis

Costco Wholesale is an international company spanning eight countries, but mostly limited to North America. Costco has been in operation since 1983 when its first location opened in Seattle, Washington (“Costco Wholesale Corporation”, 2018). As of 2017, 746 warehouses are open and operating worldwide. Costco is unique for several, including its membership program and it limited selection of products at a good price. Costco warehouses sell anything from fresh and dry foods, electronics, books, apparel, pharmaceuticals, and home furnishing.

Strengths:

• Kirkland brand

• Provide good quality at a lower price, consistently

• Loyal customer base

• Employee focused

• Choose products carefully

One of Costco’s best strengths comes from its own Kirkland

They concentrate on a smaller selection of choices for one kind of product but make up for the fact with competitive prices and quality.

Over there many years of being in service, they have developed a loyal customer base. Costco’s continued ability to provide quality products at a lower price continue to keep and recruit new customers (Kissinger, 2017).

Costco is also known to treat their employee’s well, offering them wages that exceed its competitors. On top of that they provide their employees with a great benefits. These help Costco create a team of employees that are loyal and talented (“Costco Wholesale Corporation”, 2018). Costco’s CEO has been outspoken in the past about raising the minimum wage and recently they increased their pay for all employees in the USA and Canada by a $1.50, meaning employees start at $13 dollars an hour. In contrast, Costco’s average wage is around $21 an hour with Walmart being $8 dollars lower (Lam,

Their mission statement to provide customers with high-quality products at lower process continues to attract a large following of members. While there is fierce competition in their market, they still remain a dominant force (Publishing V. L., 2015). Their strengths outweigh their weaknesses and Costco continues to maximise their strengths while they minimize their weaknesses. While introducing a larger product mix to Costco could improve their business, it could also harm the company as their relatively small product is part of the reason they have become so popular and continue to remain so. Costco is continuing their global expansion and with their business strategy they will remain a super power in the business for many years to