Costco has more than 838 warehouses around the world and made more than $226 billion in sales in 2022.- The wholesale club has similar customer loyalty as other big box stores, and it adds more new customers than it loses.
Costco is the third-largest retailer in the US, pulling in more than $226.9 billion in sales in 2022. The store operates as a wholesale club, with nearly 119 million cardholders representing households and small and midsize businesses.
The company has more than 838 warehouse stores around the world, including 585 in the US, and it employs nearly 304,000 people.
Roughly one-third of US shoppers are Costco customers, according to data from the analytics firm Numerator prepared for Insider.
More than 84% of those who shopped in 2021 returned to the store in 2022, per
Numerator found that Costco's typical shopper in the US is an Asian American woman between 35 and 44 years old who is married and living in a city in the Pacific Northwest. (Costco was founded in Seattle and is based in Washington.)
She typically has a four-year degree or higher level of education and earns more than $125,000 a year.
The typical customer visits Costco on a weekend day every two weeks or so — about 30 trips per year — and spends about $100 per trip. The company stocks only 4,000 products (stock-keeping units, or SKUs), compared with 30,000 at many other retailers.
About 11% of the average Costco shopper's spending is at the wholesale club, similar to what she spends with Amazon, and her top shopping categories in the store are groceries and personal-care items. She also buys a lot of Duracell batteries and Adidas apparel.