Costco on the East side

[OpenD]

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Originally posted by Spunky
Has nothing to do with their CEO, the economic status of our neighborhoods, what they pay staff, or whatever...

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Actually, some of it does, to a certain extent. Another set of measures I find interesting to look at is Costco's demographic vs WalMart's in four general income rankings.

More than 50% of Costco's members are classed as Affluent, while less than 25% of WalMart's are.

Living Comfortably: Costco 31%, 36% Walmart

Getting By: Costco 12%, WalMart 29%

Poor: Costco 3%, WalMart 10%

IOW, Costco skews strongly to the Higher Income market. I think we can probably all acknowledge that a Hilo side store would not draw on as affluent a market as the Kona side does. So why take on the incresed cost of another store?

With a relative in the business, I know that justifying a new store is a complicated analysis. No single metric will trigger that kind of decision.