Costco is a US wholesale company with a massive customer base, but what makes it such a powerhouse in the membership warehouse industry?
I compiled this list of Costco statistics to help you understand why they’re a dominant brand. I’ll share facts about Costco to give you a concrete idea of why this chain of stores is immensely successful.
Let’s get started.
Costco Store Statistics
Costco Wholesale Corporation started in 1976 under the name Price Club. Its founders, James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman, started its first warehouse in a converted airplane hangar in San Diego.
How Many Locations Does Costco Have in the US?
Source: Costco
How many warehouses does Costco have in the US? There are 597 Costco stores in the US as of 2023.
Source: ScrapeHero
How Many Locations Does Costco Have Worldwide?
How many Costco stores in the world are there? The company operates around 861 Costco locations worldwide.
The company continues to open stores worldwide. In 2022, Costco opened more than 20 new stores.
Which State Has the Most Costco Stores?
California has the most Costco locations in the US, with 131 stores accessible to CA residents and shoppers.
Texas is next on the list with 33 Costco warehouse locations, and Washington with 32 stores. Here are states with several of Costco’s warehouses, including their store count.
Florida – 28 Costco warehouses
Illinois – 23 Costco warehouses
New Jersey – 21 Costco warehouses
Source: Zippia
Is There a Costco Store in All 50 States?
Is Costco nationwide? Technically, no. Out of 50 US states, only 46 have Costco membership warehouses. Maine, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming are the four states without Costco.
Source: Zippia
What Other Countries Have Costco?
What countries is Costco in? Here are some countries with Costco stores.
Australia
Canada
China
France
Iceland
Japan
Korea
Mexico
New Zealand
Spain
Sweden
Taiwan
The United Kingdom
The United States
Source: Costco
How Many Stores Does Costco Have Compared to Its Competitors?
Costco has one of the biggest store location figures, but how does it stack up to its competitors in the retail market? Here are some Costco competitors and their current store count.
Walmart – 10,593 stores (including Sam’s Club)
Sam’s Club – 600 stores
Target – 1,926 stores
Source: Wallstreetzen
How Many Gas Stations Does Costco Have?
Many people go to Costco gas stations because of their substantially lower prices and convenient gas hours. There are already 615 Costco gas stations worldwide.
Source: Wallstreetzen
Costco Revenue and Market Share Statistics
Here’s a look at the Costco sales, revenue, and market share statistics.
What Is Costco’s Annual Revenue?
Costco earns hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue annually.
In the fiscal year of 2023 (Ended September 3, 2023), Costco’s revenues hit $237.7 billion, including revenue from memberships, food court sales, retail sales, and other income streams.
The Costco annual revenue figures in 2022 were $226.95 billion and $195.9 billion in 2021.
Net income for Costco has hovered around 1.9% to 2.57% in the last ten years.
Source: Costco
How Much Does Costco Make From Membership Fees?
Costco’s membership fee revenue hit $4.22 billion by the end of the fiscal year 2022. The figure has been on an uptrend for several years. Back in 2019, membership fee revenues were at only $1.5 billion.
Source: Wallstreetzen
How Big Is Costco?
Costco is the sixth largest retailer in the world and the third biggest in the US, following Walmart and Amazon, as per the National Retail Federation.
The top 10 largest Costco stores are between 150,000 to 235,000 square feet.
Source: Zippia
What Is Costco’s Share in the Wholesale Market?
Costco is a dominant player in the wholesale club market. The Costco market share is about 55.5% of the warehouse club industry, hovering around 52 to 56% over the past two years.
Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale follow in second and third place with a market share of 36.2% and 8.3%, respectively.
Source: Zippia
Are Costco’s E-commerce Sales Growing?
Yes. Costco’s e-commerce sales increased by 75.8% in a quarter in 2021.
This figure doesn’t include Coscto’s third-party same-day grocery program, which rose by 450% year over year in that same quarter.
Some of Costco’s most famous products for ecommerce include over-the-counter and pharmacy, garden and patio, electronics, and health and beauty products.
Source: Zippia
Is Costco Still Growing?
Yes. From 2019 to 2020, the company grew 9.2%. One of their biggest growth years happened between 2018 to 2019 when they grew 9.7%.
Source: Zippia
Costco Expenses
Check out the following statistics on Costco expenses.
How Much Does Costco Spend on Merchandise?
One of Costco’s biggest expenditures is its merchandise. In its fiscal year 2022, it spent $199.382 billion on merchandise. This figure is up from the $170.684 billion posted in fiscal 2021.
Source: Wallstreetzen
How Much Does Costco Spend on Advertising?
Despite Costco’s popularity, the company spends 0% of its budget on advertising.
This strategy helps Coscto keep its prices low, sometimes even undercutting its competition.
Costco’s business model for growth relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, customer loyalty, and its membership model to increase its customer base and grow its sales.
Source: Zippia
Costco Customer Statistics
What do Costco customer demographics look like? Here’s a look at some numbers around Costco shoppers and customers.
How Many Costco Members Are There?
How many members does Costco have? As of September 2023, there are now 127.9 million cardholders across 71 million households worldwide.
Source: Costco
How Many Costco Customers Are Gold Star Members?
Source: usatoday.com
Not all Costco shoppers have the same membership. Costco has a Gold Star membership program with added perks.
Costco membership statistics indicate that around 54 million of Costco’s members have a Gold Star status.
There’s also the Costco Executive Membership. Executive members get one free Household Card and a 2% reward on qualified Costco purchases.
Source: Statista
How Many Customers Renew Their Costco Memberships the Following Year?
Coscto’s global member renewal rate is impressive, at 88% on average. Yearly renewal rates in the US and Canada are higher, hitting around 91%.
Source: Wallstreetzen
What Is a Typical Costco Customer?
Costco’s biggest customer group is Asian American women between 35 and 44 years old, married, and with a four-year degree. This group’s average household income is around $125,000 a year.
The next most popular Costco demographic is members older than 65. Hispanics and Caucasians make up the next largest race segment.
Source: Zippia
What Does the Average Costco Customer Buy?
Costco shoppers normally buy up to nine products per Costco visit, amounting to $114 in spending per trip. Food is still among the top categories people buy from Costco when visiting.
Source: Zippia
Costco Product Statistics
Costco’s cheap products are the epicenter of its success. These are some Costco product statistics you shouldn’t miss.
How Many Products Does Costco Carry?
Costco’s SKU (stock-keeping units) is surprisingly smaller than most supermarkets, averaging 4,000 SKUs versus the 30,000 found at most supermarkets.
This is mainly because of Costco’s commitment to selecting quality products they can sell at low and larger volumes.
Source: Costco
How Much Wine Does Costco Sell Annually?
Costco sells over $1 billion worth of wine annually through its warehouses. This makes the company one of the largest wine retailers in the United States.
Source: Gitnux
What Is Costco’s Most Popular Item?
Source: costco.co.uk
Its most popular item Costco sells is Kirkland Signature Bath Tissue. Across its hundreds of stores, Costco sells over a billion toilet paper rolls annually, with $400 million in sales.
Source: Zippia
How Much Do Kirkland Products Contribute to Costco’s Sales?
As of 2021, the private Kirkland signature label contributes around 31% of Costco’s total sales.
Source: Cheapism
How Many Rotisserie Chickens Does Costco Sell Annually?
Another popular item on Costco’s product list is their rotisserie chickens. In 2022, the company sold 117 million rotisserie chickens.
Source: eatthis.com
How Many Hot Dogs Does Costco Sell Annually?
Costco’s hot dog is another popular product because they’re made with 100% beef and have no fillers or preservatives. People love these hot dogs, so Costco sells up to 100 million hot dogs yearly.
Source: Gitnux
How Many Pumpkin Pies Does Costco Sell?
Come Thanksgiving, Costco’s pumpkin pie becomes a mass favorite. In 2020, Costco sold 5.5 million pumpkin pies. Before COVID-19 lockdowns, the figure was even higher, hitting 6.1 million pie sales in 2019.
Source: Gitnux
How Much Gas Does Costco Sell?
Costco’s gas stations are a massive contributor to its sales, accounting for 9% of total net sales in 2020.
Source: Wallstreetzen
Costco Employee Statistics
How Many Employees Does Costco Have?
Costco has a global workforce of 304,000 employees, with 203,000 working as US employees.
Source: Zippia
How Much Do Costco Employees Earn?
Costco’s employee treatment has often been lauded because of their workers’ compensation. It’s currently one of the highest-paying corporations in retailing.
Costco offers its workers around $20 an hour on average. Around 130,000 of its employees reportedly make its minimum wage.
Salaried employees receive benefits like health benefits and so on after only one month of work. Full-time hourly employees get benefits after 90 days. Costco also gives generous 401(k) plans to its employees.
Source: Zippia
How Many Costco Employees Live in the US?
Of the over 304,000 Costco employees, 203,000 work in the US.
Source: Wallstreetzen
Miscellaneous Costco Statistics
Here’s a look at some miscellaneous Costco statistics.
How Big Are Costco Stores?
The average Costco size is 146,000 square feet. But the sizes vary significantly. The smallest Costco is 80,000 square feet, and the biggest is 230,000 square feet.
Costco is developing the Fresno Costco business center, which will be over 241,000 square meters and will likely be the busiest Costco in California.
Source: Costco
Where Is the Busiest Costco Store?
The Costco store on Oahu Island in Hawaii is currently the busiest and most likely the most profitable Costco in the world.
At the helm of the top 10 busiest Costco stores in the world, around a quarter of the island’s 950,000 residents are reported to be Costco members.
Source: Zippia
How Much Do Costco Stores Make in One Day?
How much money does Costco make a day per store? The average Costco store will make around $526,000 daily. The average sales per warehouse stands at $192,000,000.
Here are some of the top Costco stores ranked by sales:
Costco Honolulu (Iwilei) – $300 million annual sales
Costco Tokyo Makuhari (Chiba), Japan – $280 million annual sales
Costco Los Angeles (Marina Del Rey), United States – $270 million annual sales
Seoul Yangjae-dong (Sapyeong-daero), South Korea – $260 million annual sales
Costco Melbourne Docklands, Australia – $250 million annual sales
Source: Zippia
What Is Costco’s Private-Label Brand?
Costco’s private label brand is the Kirkland Signature™ product line. These products have been known to have equal or better quality than many national branded products. Some products in this line include:
Juice
Cookies
Coffee
Housewares
Luggage
Clothing
Detergent
Source: Costco
How Much Is Costco Stock?
Costco’s stock price hovered between $447.90 and $572.18 in 2023. Its highest price was $601.52, which the stock hit on April 07, 2022.
Source: Marketwatch
How Many Car Dealerships Has Costco Partnered With?
The retail giant has partnerships with up to 3,000 car dealers. In 2020, Costco sold 689,000 new and pre-owned cars.
Source: Cheapism
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How Often Does the Average Costco Member Visit Costco?
The average Costco customer will visit a store around 30 times yearly or once every two weeks.
Who Is the Largest Demographic for Costco?
Asian American women between 35 to 44 years old are the most popular Costco shopper segment. They typically earn $125,000 annually and have a four-year degree or higher.
How Many People Visit Costco Everyday?
Costco stores typically see around three million members a day.
Why Do So Many People Go to Costco?
Here are some reasons people like Costco.
Quality products with substantially lower prices than other stores
Great deals on wholesale purchases for small businesses and families
Extended warranty coverage and tech support
One of the best return policies, especially its Costco mattress return policy
Costco stores take EBT as payment for fruits, vegetables, canned goods, and more
Affordable Costco catering options
The Bottom Line
These are just some of the many Costco facts, statistics, and figures that should show you how massive the company is.
Hopefully, you learned something from this list that will help you understand Costco’s operations and trends more.
I recommend signing up for a Costco membership if you don’t have one yet. You won’t regret it.
