Costco

Costco Wholesale Corporation is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world, and headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, United States, with its flagship warehouse #1 in nearby Seattle.

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Costco's first location, opened in 1976 under the "Price Club" name, was housed in a Quonset hut in San Diego. Its unique model of serving primarily small-business owners proved very successful, prompting James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman to open the first Costco warehouse location in Seattle. This new venture proved very successful; Costco became the first company ever to grow from zero to $3 billion in sales in less than six years. In 1993, Costco and Price Club merged, forming "PriceCostco." The combined company had 206 locations generating $16 billion in annual sales and created the company's current structure. Costco's web site was first introduced in 1995, and it started conducting e-commerce in 1998 at Costco.com. In 1997, PriceCostco changed its name back to Costco, under which the company currently operates. Costco has also changed the site of its corporate headquarters from the city of Kirkland, Washington, to Issaquah.

Warehouse club: A warehouse club is a retail store selling a small amount of merchandise in terms of variety. Since they have membership requirements, customers are usually members of the club, and pay an annual fee in order to continue their membership. The clubs are able to pass along savings in the form of low p...

Issaquah, Washington: Issaquah (pronounced ) is a city located in King County, Washington. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 11,212....

United States: :For other uses, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation)....