ON THIS DAY
On this day: Costco opened its first warehouse
September 15, 1983 — 72 items, one loyalty mechanic, forty years of compounding.
The PUBlish Desk · 11 April 2026
On September 15, 1983, Jim Sinegal opened the first Costco warehouse in Seattle. Seventy-two items on the shelf. One SKU per category. Memberships required.
The retailing industry at the time mocked the concept — membership for the right to shop, limited selection, no advertising. Four decades later Costco is a $280B company with the highest employee retention in big-box retail and the lowest gross margin in the category (around 11%).
The counterintuitive lesson: the customer isn't the buyer of the goods. The customer is the buyer of the membership. Everything else is customer-acquisition cost.
When your pricing is recurring and the product is fulfilment, everything simplifies.
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