[Tagging] Proposed tag shop=wholesale

[johnw]

> 
> A lot of Costco's customers are small businesses who buy wholesale


25 years ago this was their business model. (Price club). 

15 years ago this was still true. 

This is not true any more. 

They still have business accounts (my friend has one), but I’ll bet you % of customers and % items bought and % of money spent at costco goes *at least* 80-20  end-consumers vs resellers. My guess is it is probably closer to 90-10. 

This seems to be true in the US and Japan. the amount of moms with kids and elderly people wandering around shopping for ice cream and batteries are not resellers. Anyone buying tires, glasses, clothes, books, movies, computer electronics, toothbrushes, or frozen food is also not a reseller (no reseller selling TVs is buying a single TV every few months). The parking lot is completely full of families. Besides certain bulk food supply aimed at restaurants (60 eggs) or is easily resellable in small amounts (canned drinks), all the stocked items are now completely targeted at consumers. Anything with a Kirkland logo is meant for end-consumers, otherwise there was no reason to create the KS line of products. 

All of their secondary services - glasses, food court, pharmacy, tire center, photo Prints, and other stuff through third parties (garage doors, cars, tax prep, etc) is all for consumers as well - so that should *really* tell you who is walking through costco’s doors.


Javbw