Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation that operates a chain of membership only big box warehouse club retail stores, with its worldwide headquarters in Issaquah, Washington, an eastern suburb of Seattle. The company opened its first warehouse in Seattle in 1983, and through mergers its corporate history dates back to 1976, when its former competitor Price Club was founded in San Diego, California. As of 2025 Costco is the third largest retailer in the world and, as of August 2024, the world's largest retailer of beef, poultry, organic produce, and wine, operating 924 warehouses worldwide as of March 2026, with 85 percent of them in North America.
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Costco is the defining modern warehouse club, selling bulk goods to fee-paying members from no-frills warehouse stores.
Sources
Costco (Wikipedia)
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Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation that operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores.
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