Costco Wholesale Corporation (Extended hours) (COST) Stock Price & Chart | Trade Now

Costco Company profile

Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) is an international membership-based warehouse based in Issaquah, Washington, US.

It offers one of the largest selections of private-labelled and branded products in various merchandise categories, making up one of the largest and most exclusive product category selections under a single roof. Categories include groceries, confectionery, appliances, television and media, automotive supplies, tires, toys, hardware, sporting goods, jewellery, watches, cameras, books, housewares, apparel, health and beauty aids, furniture, office supplies and office equipment.

Costco also has products under its private-label Kirkland Signature, including

juice, cookies, coffee, housewares, luggage, clothing and detergent. In addition to the warehouse business, Costco operates self-service petrol stations at several of its US, Canada, Australia, Japan, UK, Spain, Mexico, Taiwan and Iceland locations.

Only Costco members can shop at the company’s warehouses and online stores. There are three types of memberships: executive, business and gold star. Business members can shop for resale, business and personal use, while individuals can apply for gold star membership

Sol Price and his son Robert Price pioneered the members-only warehouse retail business as the ‘Price Club’ in 1976. They opened the first warehouse club in a remodelled aircraft hangar on Morena Boulevard in San Diego, California.

Costco started when two retail executives, Jim Sinegal and Jeff Brotman, decided to start a new members-only warehouse business in 1982, opening the first Costco outlet in Seattle, Washington, the following year. Two years later, Costco became a public company, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol COST.

As of February 2022, Costco had a total of 828 warehouses, with 572 of them located across 46 US states and Puerto Rico. The remaining were in Canada, the UK, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Iceland, France and China.