INTRODUCTION The Industrial Revolution reshaped the world and expedited how business was conducted through the use of railroads and steam engines. Department stores soon evolved after and revolutionized how shopping was done and centralized a variety of merchandise at one central location (Tayan, 2003). With the introduction of 20th century operational management strategies such as Just in Time (JIT) and Lean Manufacturing, companies had to alter its operational efficiency and the way it conducted its business in order to grow and stay competitive. Costco Wholesale Corporation entered the wholesale club industry in the early 1980s (Tayan, 2003). The idea behind a wholesale club was to maximize profits by minimizing operational costs …show more content…
Costco has maintained steady growth as well as healthy finances. The company has maintained its operating expenses at high although steady level ranging from 98%-99%. Operating income has been managed kept its relation to growth. Net income has also been sustained at a level constant to growth. A key factor to Costco’s finances is its membership fees. It accounts for a very small amount in comparison to its net sales, but it is the difference maker between breaking even, (or taking a loss), to making a healthy profit. Costco’s membership fees account for a little less than 2% and is almost equal to its net income. Based on the company’s income statements, Costco is perceived to be in good financial condition, as income to sales ratio remains the same.
Information gathered from Costco’s balance sheet show that it has steadily grew a larger cash reserve. It has a higher rate of outstanding receivables and has sharply increased the rate of inventory kept in stock from 16% in 1997 to 27% in 2001. Another interesting fact to notice is the high increase in property, plants, and equipment increase in proportion to assets, from 31% in 1997 to 58% in 2001. Costco has a much higher ratio of accounts payable in 2001 compared to 1997, which can be explained by the many investments and purchases of property, land, and plans. The amount of short-term liabilities to assets has more than doubled, from 20% to 41%. This may be a troublesome trend if it continues since they
Costco 's assets-to-equity ratio has fallen slightly from 2.21 to 2.06. This means that for every dollar of invested capital Costco acquires $2.06 worth of assets in 2001 verses $2.21 worth of assets in 1997. This may indicate that less assets are being acquired. If less assets are acquired, less sales may be generated and if less sales are generated there is less net income yielding less return for shareholders and a less attractive investment opportunity.
There are additional examples of managerial and financial accounting information that can apply to Costco. Examples of Costco’s financial accounting information are revenue, gross margin percentage, operating income, operating margin percentage, net income, earnings per share, dividends, shares, operating cash flow, cap spending, free cash flow, working capital, tax rate percentage, net margin percentage, average asset turnover, return on assets percentage, average financial leverage, return on equity percentage, return on invested capital percentage, and interest coverage (Morningstar, 2016). This information is very useful to external users such as creditors, government agencies, analysts, reporters, and investors (Edmonds, Olds, & Tsay,
In my opinion, Costco is continuing to do well. A few months ago, I read an article online in which Costco employees consider the company one of the best employers to work for in the United States. According to an Indeed report that analyzed its database of 18 million employer reviews, employees at Costco are the most
Costco, in conjunction with its subsidiaries, operates membership warehouses where a wide variety of consumer goods are sold wholesale. Both brand name and private-label products are sold across a vast array of merchandise categories, such as snack foods; dry/prepackaged foods; tobacco; alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages; cleaning supplies: electronics; health and beauty aids; office supplies; deli and produce; and apparel.
It was a beautiful summer day.The sweet smell of sunflowers blooming through our backyard was similar to the smell of honey. There were so many different types of birds and insects flying around me that I never even knew existed. With water balloons flying around my sister and I, we heard a holler from my mom, “Let’s go, we need to go to Costco!” at the sound of my mom’s voice mentioning Costco my sister and I dropped our water balloons, cleaned the mess as fast as we could. We ran inside, as fast as a race car driver, gulping down the glass of milk my mom neatly placed on the table. With white mustaches we stood next my mom’s silver toyota camry, ready to go. As my mom finished the last of the dishes, we strapped on our seat belts over the booster seat and went to our favorite store.
The first of Porter’s Five Forces that impact Costco is the threat of new entrants. The threat of new entrants into the wholesale and membership retail space is low. There are several reasons why the threat of entrants into the market is low. The leading reason why the threat of entry is low is because an emerging company will struggle to have the volume necessary to compete with Costco. Costco is the sixth largest retailer in the U.S. As a major retailer, Costco has the highest discounts on a majority of its
“We are a membership warehouse club, dedicated to bringing our members the best possible prices on quality brand-name merchandise.” Costco Wholesale Corporation is one of biggest wholesale corporations in the United States and several other countries. The story of Costco’s rise from a single Seattle store in 1983 to a multinational chain of enormously profitable warehouses is a tale of perfect leadership in a rapidly-changing retail world. The company’s first location was in 1976 under the name Price Club which was established by Sol Price. Jim Sinegal launched a competing company with an idea of a wholesale business,
Membership warehouse club is a strategy differentiates. One of Costco strengths is pricing, they offer huge discounts on bulk
But how profitable is Costco? Threats to Costco over the years have been mainly from competitors. Increasing competition from rivals Sam’s Club and BJ’s wholesale has not impacted the company significantly but intense price competition is a major threat to the company ability to remain profitable and relevant in the industry. Costco does better than most competitors even in an economic
The success of a company all falls on the shoulders of good management. If you have great management the company will run very smoothly. There are so many things that take place when you have good management. It encourages initiative, encourages innovation, helps with growth and expansion, improves the life of workers, motivates employees and much more. Without good management there would be no success.
On Thursday, September 29, 2016, Costco switched their store credit cards from American Express to Visa. Approximately 11.2 million credit cards were transferred to visa cards. With the change in credit card carriers 1.1 million other customers applied for the credit card of which 730,000 new accounts had been activated. The switch between the two credit card bands didn’t go smoothly. The problems the incurred by the company are now behind them, and now Costco is benefiting by not paying as high of fees with Visa. By Friday, Costco’s share prices were up by four percent, and their quarterly earnings were higher than Wall Street predicted. Compared with last year, Costco is still down by five percent and is not doing as well as previous
The business model is member only exclusive access to bulk quantities which are sold at low prices with high volume which makes it high profitable. There are 3 memberships which consist of Gold, Business and Household memberships. The financial objective is to minimize costs to offer discounts that attracts customers. Costco’s usually give free samples to entice customers to buy their goods, which is a great marketing tool. That increases the urge to buy and helps boosts sales. They generated $129.0 billion revenue for 201, of which $14.3 million was profit.
Costco started in the West Coast in the early 1980s. While it was originally an imitator of the Price Club, which founded the wholesaling business model, it became part of Price Club; Price Club eventually donned Costco as its brand name. There were an upward of twenty-five imitators, the only wholesalers to remaining being Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club (Coriolis Research 37). As of 2014, Costco had forty-two million club members, a 37% increase within a five year period (Kalogeropoulos). From September to the end of 2015, eighteen new warehouses are scheduled to open, totaling 487 locations in the United States, 686 warehouses worldwide (Costco). To understand how Costco expanded and became into a flagship retailer known to the public today, one must focus on how it treats is customers, employees and retail as a whole.
Costco is an international Wholesale Corporation chain that has a higher sales volume than Walmart (Sam’s Club). Costco corporation main target is to sell products at a low cost and at a high volume. Costco compare to Walmart pay their employees a higher wage than other wholesale corporations. Costco employees put in more efforts towards productivity by doing this Costco proportional to the work they do. Costco employees are more motivated to work hard to achieve the company goals, so in return they receive a bonus. Costco make sure that they obtain a higher productivity report. Costco experiences a lower turnover by making sure that their employees are fairly compensated in order to retain good workers. The tables shows the financial accounting
The case takes a gander at how the organization attempted to streamline cramped stockrooms and how it resuscitated its conveyance methodology utilizing mechanization innovation. The case likewise highlights the advantages of aggregate store network change for PepsiCo. This case can be utilized by MBA/MS understudies considering Operations Management as part their educational modules.