How Costco Cracked Japan’s Impossible Market
Japan has long been a “graveyard” for foreign big box retailers — Walmart, Carrefour, and Tesco all failed to win over shoppers. Costco, on the other hand, has grown to nearly 40 locations since 1999, making Japan one of its largest markets outside North America.
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On paper, a bulk-buying warehouse shouldn’t have worked in one of the world’s most crowded countries. But Costco bent its US playbook to fit Japan’s unique retail landscape in surprising ways. This is the story of how Costco cracked one of the toughest markets in the world — and why its rivals couldn’t.
Special thanks to Tran Phan for weighing in on our story. You can find more of his reporting here: https://www.readtrung.com/.
And if you really haven’t had enough Costco content by this point, then check out our feature story by Zachary Crockett on how Costco gained a cult following — by breaking every rule of retail: https://thehustle.co/costco-membership-economics
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38 Comments
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man, all i care about is I want Chipotle, Chick-fil-a, and Wingstop to enter Japan
2:24 "Wolesale"
Is it so hard to check how names of companies are pronounced.
There's something called the internet and it's easy to use for the purposes of basic research.
The company is pronoounced Ca-ray-four not Car-four.
@1:58 nice use of A.I.
The cost of living in Japan has gone so dramatically up for ordinary Japanese individuals, especially as wages have mostly stay the same since the 90s. So lower prices, high volume plus decent quality equals a win win.
Also the Costco brand is so popular helped lots
Cómo conquistar X mercado? R. Dejarse capturar por la oligarquía local.
Tan obvio como lo del felpudo de victoria
@10:00 Why does it sound like a surprise about reselling Kirkland-branded products? Costco is a wholesale outlet. Lots of businesses resell stuff from Costco.
I went to the one is South Korea. I'm not kidding when I say it was packed shoulder to shoulder and the checkout line wrapped around the entire store. You go downstairs where the produce and food court are and people are eating mountains of onions mixed with ketchup and mustard. Costco Kimchi, they call it, because Korean cuisine demands sides so they adopted the onion dispenser for the hotdogs to make this disgusting dish. An interesting part of how a culture adapts to a Western outlet.
Food is expensive in Costco in Japan because of duty. There are lots of cheaper Japanese grocery stores in Japan. Low income people can't pay membership fee. Japanese people who use Costco don't want cheap price. Walmart, Tesco, Carffour sold Japanese foods not American, British, French foods. What we want is non Japanese products. 30years ago, there were shops called Seijo ishi and kaldi.These are Japanese shops which sell western products. And now these are increasing rapidly. We Japanese don't need western grocery stores which sell Japanese products. And we don't like buy in bulk. But yen is weak. So we need to do it for lower price.
You make it very attractive to unsubscrbe
I'm not surprised in the slightest that it's in Okinawa.
Walmart should have brought "American Walmart store" to Japan (like Costco)
But I didn't notice any American products at Seiyou supermarkets.
Japanese costco has much better food selctions than American ones.
lol
3:29 "…and thanks to pressure from US…"" says it all. Japan got Costco whether or not it wanted it, plus consumerism of course.
Let them come to InDiA
4:28 I lived in oosaka in 2009-2010 for a study abroad and I went to the Costco in Amagasaki a few times. I had no idea that store was 1 of just 9 stores in the country. Wild to know as I'm from the U.S. so there are multiple Costco stores in the state that I live in. Thanks for mentioning this fact and making this video!
Costco exists because other companies act on greed and not service. Costco goes out of its way to treat customers very well. They offer excellent prices, large sizes and a great selection of products. In Canada Costco has been importing foods and other products from around the world. It seems to have caught on. Korean foods and cosmetics are some of the best sellers. In addition, suppliers love working with Costco. They work together to make sure the supplier, Costco and the customers are happy.
ive been buying the 1kg tub of greek yogurt for so long now because its so cheap in costco that even in the manufacturer's website, its double the price.. like how!? 😅
2:25 'Wolesale"
Japanese household have very small fridge. I wonder if the Costco Japan still sells Giantic packs LOL
I cant believe walmart didnt try to sell it self as an american company in Japan, the novelty alone would have brought sales. rip
0:03 Glad I don't have that problem at the Japanese Costco where I live, I guess cuz it's not brand new. Haha. Plus, it's way easier to find parking in than the one near my house in Southern California. I think that's because my Costco here in Japan is on an intersection with a one-lane street and another two-lane street. The one back home in SoCal is in the middle of a one-lane street. Kind of a fail in terms of location planning. Lol.
I'm surprised this works in Japan. Their apartments and refrigerators are so small. How is is possible to buy in bulk????
This video is pointless You are not even comparing costco vs an actual sam's club
@6:56 what? There's literally a supermarket here that has a tagline "everyday low price"
Seems like no one subscribes to Western consumerism more than East asians.
won’t that guy stick his microphone up his mouth???
came for the costco topic, stayed for the fyne syht host
as a tiny island, taiwan alone has I think has 13-14 Costcos!
Klub membaship neighborhood markets
IMO, Costco is the best retail company in the US. If they could just improve their food court options, they would be perfect.
Costco cracked Japan?!? 😨
Costco is just amazing for value & quality
I think one of the episodes of Modern Family sums up the Costco experience well. You go in skeptic…then after seeing a few items you wouldn't expect to see…"What is this place✨"
Keep in mind the Okinawa has a massive US military base.
The Japanese also have a cultural bias to the layers of middle men because those intermediate distributors provided employment, and the Japanese culturally recognized that large box stores would hollow out small communities. When the Japanese demographic began to shrink that hollowed out the small stores and made large boxes more acceptable cultural because it never collided with the stores in mainstreet of small towns.
Who knew a great business could succeed in mutiple countries and Costco definitely better than Tesco or Walmart due to the nonsense business and thats gotta resonate with the Japanese people
I actually worked at Costco for 15 years and I did get to meet the CEO and senior management. I remember first time I met them 15 years ago (back when Jim Senegal was CEO ) they said the Asian markets are where they wanna expand the most. They were very clear about that.