When Costco opened to great fanfare in September 1983, early members flocked to the new style of shopping, where products were stacked warehouse-style.
Stock images Taken at the grand opening of the original Seattle store, it shows shoppers with carts filled to the brim with bulk packages of toilet paper, cleaning supplies and giant televisions.
Historic photographs of the 100,000-square-foot store show shelves and tables piled high with brown boxes of merchandise.
Others offer cordless home phones and 19-inch Panasonic televisions, items that seem outdated compared to today’s smartphones and giant 65-inch flat-screen TVs.
Eagle-eyed observers will notice the surprisingly low membership costs, visible in a photograph of the first membership kiosk counter.
Shoppers flock to the first Costco, which opened in Seattle in 1983
A display of Costco’s telephone and television products at its opening in the 1980s
Longtime Costco executive Cynthia Glaser, pictured at the grand opening in 1983
The original cost of the so-called “business” membership was just $25 a year. It was intended for smaller businesses, bars and restaurants that bought in bulk. Today, it is no longer offered.
A Gold membership (which is the same entry level as today with the same name) was $30.
That might seem cheap at first, which infuriates today’s members who pay much more.
Costco membership is increasing in a few weeks to $65 for the standard Gold category and $130 for the “executive” category. This level, which offers rebates and benefits, did not exist in the 1980s.
But they weren’t actually as cheap as they seem. Adjusted for inflation, those costs would be $79 and $95, according to the Federal Reserve Bank’s inflation calculator.
The inauguration of the membership-based store began with a trade show on September 15, 1983.
Pamphlets at the time read: ‘Costco Wholesale Club is coming to Seattle.’
‘Cash and wholesale membership, lower costs per merchandise than you currently pay,’ he promised.
“We didn’t have a lot of the improvements that we’ve added to the business since then,” said co-founder Jim Sinegal. he told Motley Fool in 2013.
“It was clearly a warehouse: a ceiling with exposed beams and concrete floors, industrial steel and forklifts moving around the facility,” he recalled.
Archival images show shoppers pushing red carts, much like those seen in stores today, filled with bulk items of recognizable staples like Tide detergent.
Unlike Price Club, Costco offered membership to both individuals and businesses.
The original cost for a standard membership was just $25 per year and $30 for Gold membership.
Checkouts at the first Costco opened in Seattle in 1983
A crowd flocks to take advantage of the discounts offered by Costco in 1983
Archival photos show what Costco looked like when it first opened in 1983
“It was clearly a warehouse; exposed beam ceiling and concrete floors and industrial steel and forklifts moving around the facility,” co-founder Jim Sinegal said of the opening.
The legendary story of Costco
Jim Sinegal and Jeff Brotman came up with the idea for Costco in 1982, inspired by European-style “hypermarkets.”
Sinegal was a retail executive who had begun his career working for Sol Price, founder of Price Club.
San Diego-based Price Club opened in 1976 and offers membership to local business owners.
Sinegal and Brotman wanted to adapt the same idea of wholesale membership, but open it up to non-commercial members as well.
The company’s sales in its first year reached $101 million, with membership dues alone exceeding $1.3 million, according to SEC filings.
The store’s popularity spread and soon second and third Costco locations opened in Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington.
As rivals like Walmart’s Sam’s Club continued to grow, Costco pushed to expand.
“When Walmart announced it was going into the discount warehouse business, we had to compete and grow quickly,” Brotman told CNN in 2009.
“That’s why we expanded as quickly as we did,” he explained.
By 1985, Costco had opened twelve stores and planned to open six more that year.
The company’s sales in its first year reached $101 million and membership dues exceeded $1.3 million.
By 1985, Costco had opened twelve stores and had six more scheduled to open during that year.
In less than six years, sales went from nothing to $6 billion, the company told Business Insider.
The company went public in 1985, selling shares for an initial price of $10.
In 1993, Sol Price decided to retire and the companies decided to merge, becoming PriceCrostco, before changing its name to simply Costco in 1997.
The company then had 206 branches and $16 billion in annual sales.
After forty years in business, Costco has more than 800 locations, nearly 129 million membership cardholders and $237.7 billion in revenue last year.