Costco Org Chart & Sales Intelligence blog (2024)

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Where is Costco investing in their business?

SALES TRIGGERS PREVIEW

More details on T-Mobile-Costco arrangement are revealed
Jan 2023
As a follow up to last week’s report that Costco will be running a pilot program that will sell T-Mobile’s products in its stores, an update has been released. The T-Mo Report revealed that the Un-carrier will be the exclusive wireless provider in 178 Costco stores. The publication shared documents detailing this new move from the Un-carrier. The documents reveal that “managers at nearby corporate-owned T-Mobile stores will be sending some of their employees to these Costco locations.” This is because actual T-Mobile corporate employees will now be manning these stores to sell the Un-carrier’s products. As such, they no longer have to rely on a third-party vendor like Wireless Advocates. One of the good things about this arrangement is that T-Mobile will be waiving its $35 Device Connection Charge for customers who will be making a transaction in these stores. There will also be a 90-day return window on purchases made at Costco, which is two months more compared to regular purchases made at T-Mobile.
Source

Costco sees improved sales performance in December
Jan 2023
Costco Wholesale closed out calendar 2022 on an up note as December net and comparable sales growth improved from the previous month. For the five weeks ended Jan. 1, net sales climbed 7% to $23.8 billion from $22.24 billion a year earlier, Issaquah, Washington-based Costco reported Thursday after the market close. That compared with a 5.7% year-over-year uptick in November and a 16.2% gain in December 2021. Across the company, comparable-club sales rose 5.5% for December and were up 7.3% excluding changes in fuel prices and foreign exchange (FX) rates, versus year-ago total comp-sales growth of 14.5% (11.5% excluding fuel and FX). By business unit, December comp sales grew 6.2% in the United States (6.4% excluding fuel and FX), 4.7% in Canada (10.9% excluding fuel and FX) and 2.5% internationally (9.1% excluding fuel and FX), according to Costco.
Source

9 Costco Secrets the CEO Just Revealed
Dec. 27, 2022

Costco Doubles Down on Ecommerce With Pickup Locker and Marketplace Expansions
December 14, 2021
Costco will put a renewed emphasis on ecommerce by doubling the number of locations with pickup lockers over the coming year and expanding its Costco Next brand directory. The retailer’s net sales were up 16.7% to $49.4 billion in Q1 2022, with digital sales up 13.3% year-over-year.
Currently, 112 Costco warehouses have pickup lockers, according to CFO Richard Galanti on a call with investors. The expansion will bring them to more than 200 stores, though Galanti did not provide an exact target for the expansion.
Source

What are Costco executives saying about business performance?

Costco Wholesale (COST) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Highlights
December 8, 2022

Executives in Attendance

"This year's results included a charge of $93 million pre-tax or $0.15 per share, primarily related to downsizing our charter shipping activities, and a tax benefit of $53 million or $0.12 per diluted share related to stock-based compensation. Last year's results included an asset write-off of $118 million pre-tax or $0.20 per diluted share and a tax benefit of $91 million or $0.21 a share related to stock-based compensation. Additionally, the strength of the U.S. dollar resulted in our foreign company earnings translating into fewer U.S. dollars. With 25% to 30% of our earnings generally -- generated outside of the United States, this negatively impacted earnings by about $0.12 per share. In terms of sales, net sales for the first quarter increased 8.1% or $53.44 billion versus $49.42 billion reported last year. On a comparable sales basis during the first quarter, reported U.S. sales increased over the 12 weeks 9.3%; and excluding gas inflation and FX, 6.5%; Canada, 2.4%; reported 8.3% increase, ex gas inflation and FX. Other International reported minus 3.1%; excluding gas inflation, FX, plus 9.1%. So, you have, all told, 6.6% reported for the company and ex-gas inflation and FX of 7.1%. E-commerce, by the way, was reported of minus 3.7% and a minus 2%, excluding FX."

"In terms of first-quarter comp sales metrics, traffic or shopping frequency increased 3.9% worldwide and up 2.2% in the U.S. Our average transaction size was up 2.6% worldwide and 6.9% U.S. during the first quarter. And foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar negatively impacted sales by a little over 3%, while gasoline price inflation positively impacted sales by approximately 2.5%. Moving down the income statement. Membership fee income reported in the quarter, our membership fee income came in right at $1 billion. That's $54 million or 5.7% higher than last year's reported number of $946 million."

"Executive members now represent 45% of our paid membership and just under 73% of worldwide sales. Moving down the income statement to gross margin. Our reported gross margin in the first quarter was lower year over year by 45 basis points and lower by 21 basis points, excluding gas inflation. And as I'll explain in a minute, the 93% pre-tax charge, excluding that 93% -- $93 million charge we took in the quarter, gross margin ex gas inflation would have been only down three basis points."
Source

Download the COST 10-K here

Where is Costco utilizing cloud technologies?

Cloud Networking Engineer – Cloud Technologies
Location: Issaquah (Seattle), WA
An important member of the Cloud technologies team that performs critical interfacing with other teams pushing towards our Cloud restructuring efforts. Performs Cloud network configurations through Terraform. Creates and manages Infrastructure as Code (IaC). Works with Main POC for Cloud Software Defined Networking. Acts as a liaison to existing Enterprise network and security teams. Develops tool integrations that allow for end to end traceability for application development (from requirements to code objects changed to meet the requirements). Collaborates with Operations, Development and other groups to develop solutions that are predisposed to scalability and simplified maintenance. Configures and maintains on-premises and Azure cloud infrastructure to ensure availability, performance, scalability and security of development, testing and production environments, relying on automated scripts and configuration management tools.
Technologies in use: Azure cloud networking, Azure native networking, Azure FW, Front Door, Azure Load Balancing, Ansible/Jenkins/Terraform

Cybersecurity Operations Engineer - Application Security
Location: Dallas, TX
The role of every Application Security Team member is to support the overarching values and business goals of Costco, including meeting legal, ethical and regulatory obligations; protecting member, employee, and supplier privacy; and ensuring a technologically secure operating environment. The Cybersecurity Operations Engineer works closely with stakeholders in Security, the Business and other leaders within Costco, as well as partner with suppliers and utilize vulnerability management resources. The Engineer is responsible for the successful delivery, design, and support of the vulnerability management program. This role has specifically focuses on application security, vulnerability scanning, vulnerability scan outputs, and the tools and methodologies utilized within the program.
Technologies in use: Git, ADO, Pull, Fetch, Push, Sync, DevOps, kanban

DevOps Engineer - Enterprise Automation and Orchestration
Location: Issaquah (Seattle), WA
The DevOps Engineer’s responsibilities include the automation of software builds, test and deployment systems, in addition to infrastructure. This role manages various development, test, staging, and demo environments (code deployment, backups, data refreshes), as well as deploys and manages software in Costco’s production environment while leveraging as much automation as possible. The DevOps Engineer is responsible for continually advancing the technology in a collaborative and creative agile environment using many of the latest technologies and industry best practices and finding better and more efficient ways of delivering solutions that meet business objectives. Develops and operates end-to-end automated solutions for IT ops activities (including deployment, release management, monitoring, etc.).
Technologies in use: Azure

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