in the market as, say, Walmart does, we have one of
the widest and longest footprints of any of this type
of retailer in the market.”
Richard says that reach will help further
expansion into South-East Asia, in particular,
Singapore. “It’s only got five million people, which
limits our scalability, but we feel that it’s a great space
from which to enter Indonesia, the Philippines and
Malaysia with the free trade agreements in that area.”
That he would mention Singapore is interesting.
As a market with a high cost of living and strong
dollar, it would not be the most obvious candidate
for international expansion. “It’s funny,” says Richard.
“The more expensive a market is, generally speaking,
the better we fare.
“We were told the Japanese would never buy
in bulk because their houses are too small. But we
looked at Japan and thought, ‘These people are sick
of paying so much money’. It was a joke, because
they were buying a single apple for the price at
which we could sell an entire case of apples. TheBased in the US, Costco
was founded in 1983 in
Seattle, Washington.
By 1990, its sales had soared
to US$9.3 billion, and after
merging with Price Company
in 1993 that grew to US$16
billion. By 2017, the company
had totalled US$126.1 billion
in worldwide sales.42 | theceomagazine.com
INSPIRE | Interview