Preparing to Conduct Business Research: Part 3
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Feasibility of Non Bulk Items at Costco – Part 1
Costco is the greatest wholesale mega store in today’s market opening its first store in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. Its mission statement is "Costco 's mission is to continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. In order to achieve our mission we will conduct our business with the following Code of Ethics in mind: Obey the law, Take care of our members, Take care of our employees, and Respect our vendors. If we do these four things throughout our organization, then we will realize our ultimate goal, which is to reward our shareholders."
Today Costco has 622 stores worldwide
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("Is Costco Really The 'Anti-Walmart '?", 2013).
The purpose of researching this or any problem is simple, if you have a problem a good solution will generate more income. Companies can often take a problem, for example Costco’s problem of not providing non-bulk items and turn them into money making avenues. With good research from the customers Costco was able to make a good decision that will further grow there company.
Preparing to Conduct Business Research: Part 2 Descriptive research will be helpful to Costco in deciding to provide items to customers in individual sales. Surveys that are filled out by Costco customers can answer many of the questions as far as which items are in the most demand to be sold individually. Development of a new test instrument can be created to address these new concerns that face Costco on changing its currents sales floor to increase revenues. Through various interviews and questionnaires Costco researchers could produce a long and short list of items preferred by customers for individual sale. Then the company could start planning the implementation of all or just the short list of items as a trial to see if the venture will produce enough revenue to cover the costs of set up.
Data Collection Instruments Decriptive research will allow the company to take the research and understand the methodologies and procedures the company would have to take to sell items individually. Considering
In this broadcast I was amazed by how Costco was formed and the little secret things that Costco using to encourage people to buy more. Surprisingly that the employee from Price Club left his job, and open his own company, Costco. I first thought that Amazon would sell more stuff than Costco because their social network system which offers free deliver, good deal, more convenience, and various items are offered. However, Costco alone sells more stuffs than Amazon. I found many interesting about Costco. Costco is a giant store with a tiny selection, for example; there is only three options for plastic zip log. This is a key for Costco that they don’t offer many options due to the fact that they don’t want to spend more money on labor part to
Marketing research is very important component of a business used to identify and define the opportunities and problems that they will encounter on the market. The aim
Costco is a company that has grown their business through customer service that goes above and beyond. Costco not only focuses on external customers they also care about their internal customers. They continue to strive to have affordable prices, great benefits for their internal customers, and Lenient return/refund policy. Costco has figured out a way to expand their membership by word of mouth(Timm,2014). They have done this by building a strong relationship with their customers. Having a strong relationship with customers is important, especially for a business such as Costco. Seeing as Costco is a retail business a majority of their customers will be return customers. Ensuring that their customers are satisfied has proved to be a key factor in their
Describe the rules and legal requirements surrounding copyright and plagiarism and explain the need for referencing and give details of the two different types and referencing. For this task I have chosen the topic of stokes. I will discuss the four ways researching
Costco's mission is to “continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices (Costco Wholesale Mission Statement - Profits and Prices Revolve Around Ethics, 2013)
Costco is a club card organization. Everyone wants to join. Joining Costco gives people access to great things that they must offer. Costco offers high wages, benefits and opportunities for growth. They offer the best wages around. They reward they employees not only with incentives but with bonuses. Employees can grow with the company because they promote within. Costco has some of the best top suppliers, PepsiCo, and Kraft Heinz. Having some of the best suppliers gives the company to bargain with their prices. A new competitor would find it hard to match Costco products and prices. Five Forces that outline Costco are rivalry among competitors. Rivalry among the company is high. Costco and Walmart are the top two in retail. Their or others, Best Buy and Target which are well known for holding their power. Retailers are competing against each other with whom can give lower prices to customers. The treat of substitute products and service is another force. This force is important because it is a technique to take customers away. They try to take customers away from other retailers by carrying items in one size with the best brands at a low price. Potential new competitors is down because competing with Costco and Walmart is hard. Power of supply. Costco does not spend that much on supplies because they buy in bulk keeping the
Helen’s is an upmarket fashion boutique store in Sydney’s east. Falling sales have been reflected by surveys that reveal consumers view the business as outdated and no longer relevant to consumers’ needs. Strong competition in the area has placed considerable pressure on pricing. The business’s target market, 50-65 year old females, no longer dominated the now younger demographic character of the area.
It was in the twentieth century that the world was first introduced to a now well-known household name, Costco. In 1976 that the first Costco was opened, formerly known as Price Club, in San Diego. The philosophy of this company is simply stated, “Keep costs down and pass the savings on to our members.” (Costco.com) It has held onto its philosophy of keeping prices low for almost half a century. Costco is self defined as a “membership warehouse club.” (Costco.com) It provides a wide variety of brand name products in their warehouse-style store, and strives to provide all members with the lowest prices that they can offer. Today, Costco is a well known and loved company by consumers.
The strategic objective of Costco is based on the concept of offering members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private label products in a wide range of merchandise categories while producing high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover. This rapid inventory turnover, when combined with the operating efficiencies achieved by volume purchasing, efficient distribution and reduced handling of merchandise in no-frills, self service warehouse facilities, enables Costco to operate profitably at significantly lower gross margins than traditional wholesalers, discount retailers and supermarkets. (1)
Costco’s business model focuses on selling limited selection of products at low prices, often at very high volume and rapid inventory turnover. These goods are bulk-packaged and marketed primarily to large families and businesses. Costco does not carry multiple brands or varieties where the item is essentially the same. It provides members with a selection of only about 4000 items, this results in a high volume of sales from a single vendor, allowing further reductions in price, and reducing marketing costs. Costco also saves money by not stocking extra bags or packing materials; to carry out their goods, customers must bring their own
Costco Wholesale has generated a revolution in how people shop: for the first time, many Americans are willing to 'pay' for the privileges of membership to a store so they can buy its products and save money. Like Wal-Mart, Costco prides itself on its low, low prices. However, in stark contrast to Wal-Mart, Costco has also made its exemplary treatment of its employees part of its marketing and sales strategy. It advertises itself as an ethical company, a company where it is a pleasure to work. This use of its HR police as a marketing strategy has proven to be effective, particularly with its target audience. While it caters to a wide and diverse audience in terms of its product diversity, on the whole Costco's target consumer is more affluent and educated than the average consumer at a big box store like Sam's Club. Costco's target audience members are interested
When you ask an average American about a wholesale dealer, one name stands out, Costco Wholessale Corp. They are one of the biggest wholesale corporation in US. That is very impressive considering they have only been in the industry for about 30 years. They are member based and provide quality goods and services to member only. Their members not just every day people but people who run small business so not only customers buy their product but sell them to others in their own stores as well. While their competitor, Wal-Mart, looks to provide lowest price but inlike Costco’s they overlook the quality. While BJ tries to look pretty to their customer, Costco pay less
Costco is the best cost provider in the wholesale club category and the strategy is associated with Costco’s capabilities and resources, which includes; a streamlined supply chain, good supplier relationships, purchasing power, high sales volumes, quick inventory turnover, and excellent customer service. The three vital components of the company strategy are low pricing, limited product selection and high-end products acquired in closeouts and liquidations. While Costco strives to beat the competitors pricing, it also delivers exceptional value in its high-end offerings and customer service, giving consumers more for their money. Given its customers are the most affluent of all the warehouse clubs, with average incomes around $75,000 and this strategy works well for Costco. However, these customers are conscious not only about money but also value for the product, this fact is supported by the members who choose for executive
One of Costco’s main issues is its membership model and its bulk goods products. Many may argue that these things do not appeal to the nation’s young consumers. Costco’s
Costco’s culture is one where the customer and employee come first. Customers enjoy a 15% markup where most retail stores increase