Image Credit: brewbooks, taken from Flickr.

TL;DR Version:
Costco is wayyyyy more interesting than you thought it was.

Church of Consumerism
by Sebastian Bartnicki

One of the most spectacularly successful recent developments in the consumer landscape has been Costco, the wholesale warehouse open to the public. Costco wholesale centres now have over 58 million members, with sales of $76.3 billion dollars (USD) in 2010. Costco is the fourth largest retailer in the USA, seventh in the world, and has continued to thrive during the recession while other companies have suffered. [4]  This colossus relies entirely on word of mouth for advertising, which can only work as well as it does because of the very real devotion of its customers. Shopper Joe Davila tells us: “This is the best place in the world. It’s like going to church on Sunday. You can’t get anything better than this. This is a religious experience.” [8]

When a wholesale warehouse is extolled as a religious experience by a middle class shopper, we should not just shake our heads and say, “Silly person…” On the contrary, we need to take Mr. Davila seriously – Costco is a religious experience, or works very much like one. If Costco can create such devoted customers without the seductive advertising, elaborate product packaging, exclusive brands, and ‘retail experiences’ that we have all come to expect, it’s worthwhile to understand how it does so. Costco is far more complex, and far more subtle than the description ‘wholesale warehouse’ suggests. This essay is an exploration of how Costco represents itself, how it functions, and what it may mean for consumerism in North America.