Number of Costco warehouses 2019, by country

Costco, the warehouse shopping club, continued to grow in 2019 with 782 locations worldwide at year’s end. The U.S. is still home to the vast majority of the American retailer’s warehouses, but it has expanded into 11 other markets. With the expansion in store count comes an increase of members, and at the end of 2018 Costco could boast over 98 million cardholders. Costco is headquartered in Washington state in the United States and opened its first warehouse in Seattle in 1983. Today, the company is the second largest retailer in the world, behind only Walmart. In 2019, the company had net sales of over 149.35 billion U.S. dollars and a brand value of over 17 billion.

Costco’s customers

According to a recent survey, over 10 percent of Americans did their main grocery shopping at Costco and over 22 percent of households did at least some of their shopping with the retailer. Costco seems to be pleasing these customers, as it took the top spot in a consumer satisfaction survey regarding department and discount stores in 2018.