Costco is Making Millions from People Addicted to Their Store
NOTE: Our regular Wednesday “BBH Feature” exclusive article will be posted tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Costco is a pretty amazing company. Not only do they have tasty free samples (my sons and I love going around trying them all), and treat their employees really well, but they have created a place that has some of their customers literally addicted to their stores.
Check out the intro to this intriguing article that Robin Lewis wrote on Forbes.com called “Costcoholics’: Costco’s $113.7 Billion Addicts”…
Image from Wikipedia.org
“A good friend of mine was raving about Costco recently, going on about how she couldn’t resist shopping there at least two to three times a week. She said sometimes she doesn’t even plan on buying anything. She just loves wandering around in the enormous, double-football-field-sized warehouse, hunting for what’s new (Costco turns over its entire inventory 12 times per year).
“She is also obsessed by what the big designer or luxury ‘surprise’ of the week might be — stuff like Waterford Crystal, Coach handbags or Omega watches, to name a few, all selling out quickly for shock-and-awe low prices. And even though she may have shopped with no intention of purchasing, she says she always finds something that seduces her to buy.
“As she is telling me about her compulsive obsession, or obsessive compulsion, for this almost out-of-body experience she has every time she goes to Costco, I think I observe a slight tremor — almost as though she’s going through some sort of withdrawal.
“The next thing out of her mouth is, ‘I must plan a dinner party for this weekend so I can get over there tomorrow and get some steaks and another case of red wine.’ Just to give you some context, world-renowned chef Julia Child bought her meat from Costco, and the retailer is the largest purveyor of fine wines in the U.S. Incredibly, to me, my friend did plan a dinner party just as an excuse to go to Costco. Now that redefines the neurological addiction I’ve been writing about for years.”
