Can the Golden Age of Costco Last?

"Costco, in one sense, is simple enough to define. It's a chain retailer that operates on a club model, offering members who pay sixty-five dollars a year the chance to buy bulk goods at prices close to wholesale. Costco sells fresh and packaged foods, household and pharmacy staples, electronics, furniture, and clothing, from both name brands and Kirkland Signature, the company's private label, which appears on everything from golf clubs to gasoline. Employees, who receive excellent wages and benefits, often work there for years. The stores are called warehouses, and this captures their look: merchandise stacked on pallets across industrial shelves rising toward high ceilings."

"I know exactly how Costco smells-like clean concrete and the static of plastic wrap-and would recognize that smell anywhere. The parts of California where going someplace requires getting on a highway and driving for thirty minutes feel like both Costco's native habitat and my own. The Costco where my family got its paper towels, frozen French-bread pizzas, and ibuprofen-Warehouse No. 148, on Senter Road-opened the week I was born. "I will be cremated in a Kirkland flame lol," my brother texted me when he heard that I was writing about the company. My late father, our family's designated Costco shopper, wore Kirkland Signature pants."

Costco operates on a membership-club model charging sixty-five dollars annually and sells bulk goods at prices close to wholesale across food, household, pharmacy, electronics, furniture, and clothing. The company markets both name brands and Kirkland Signature, a broad private label that spans many categories. Employees receive above-market wages and benefits and often remain with the company for years. Stores resemble warehouses with palletized merchandise on industrial shelving beneath high ceilings. Many customers form sentimental attachments tied to sensory memories, driving patterns, and family routines centered on specific warehouse locations and recurring purchases.

Read at The New Yorker