Costco to Open 29 Stores in 2011, More than Double its 2010 Total

According to the Retail Info Systems article:

Membership warehouse Costco will more than double its net store openings during fiscal 2011 compared to fiscal 2010, when the retailer added a net total of 13 stores. During fiscal 2011, which began August 31, 2010, the retailer plans to add 29 locations, 16 in the U.S. and 13 internationally.
Costco is front-loading the store openings, with eight new locations set to debut before the end of its first fiscal quarter on November 21, 2010. These store openings include three in Chicago, bringing the retailer’s presence there to 17 total locations. Currently Costco operates 573 locations around the world.
Costco executives revealed the chain’s expansion plans during a conference call discussing solid Q4 financial results. Total sales rose 7.8% to $23.6 billion compared to the same period last year, with comp store sales rising 6%, normalized to a 4% increase with the removal of gasoline sales from the calculation. For the entire 2010 fiscal year, the average U.S. Costco warehouse store had $137 million in sales, compared to $133 million during the previous fiscal year.
Costco has also been building its total number of member households, adding one million households during fiscal 2010 for a total of 31.3 million. The chain’s expansion should accelerate its membership growth, according to Richard Galanti, Costco’s executive vice president and CFO.
In its e-commerce channel, Costco was hit particularly hard by the recession, since Costco Online offers a limited assortment of big-ticket items. Galanti didn’t provide specific figures but indicated that online sales during fiscal 2010 had recovered somewhat from their 5% to 6% decrease during fiscal 2009.
The retailer has no plans to make significant changes to its slow-and-steady e-commerce strategy. Responding to a question during the conference call, Galanti said that while Costco’s online channel could be a $5 billion business down the road, "I don’t know if the road is five years or 10 years, but it is going to keep growing. It is all about focus in merchandising. Certainly the last year and a half has been tempered with big-ticket discretionary items. We are encouraged by what we have seen in the last few months, and it is a nice profitable business."
Galanti added that even though the profitability of its international expansion will garner a lot of attention in the next few years, the company remains committed to e-commerce as a long-term investment. Online "has some benefits to our warehouses as well; sometimes some vendors will sell to us [online] first, and then ultimately, hopefully we can talk them into the rest of the company. We have got a wealth of information and great opportunity to push e-commerce in the future, and we will do it in a methodical way," said Galanti.

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