If you’ve ever wandered the aisles of Costco and triumphantly scored a bargain five-pound jar of artichoke hearts, only to arrive home and realize you don’t own a restaurant and can never use said artichokes before they go bad, you’ll want to consult “The Costco Craze: Inside the Warehouse Giant,” a documentary debuting Thursday at 7 p.m. on CNBC.
The mind-numbingly bland warehouse decor is intentional. So is the lack of signage, the better to encourage roaming.
It’s all here: The psychology of the layout, the behind-the-scenes decisions about what odd mix of products to carry, the science of the pricing and the views of loyal card-carrying members who embrace a trip to Costco as more than an errand– an adventure.
CNBC reporter Carl Quintanilla follows Jim Sinegal, 76-year-old co-founder and CEO of Costco, on one of his regular private-jet marathon tours of several stores. The hour peeks in on the meetings of anxious vendors at Costco’s headquarters in Issaquah, WA, hoping to make a sale to the chain.
There are now 600 Costco stores doing $88 billion worth of annual business. Customers gush about in which they stun themselves at checkout by spending more than planned.
The array of merchandise — cereal to caskets, diamonds to dog food, gasoline to flat-screen TVs — is mind-boggling. They sell $4 billion worth of produce a year.
The single best seller, the hour reveals: toilet paper, under the store’s Kirkland brand label.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
