Costco

COMMENTARY:

Costco always had a relatively small footprint in New England.  New England is after all the home of BJ's Wholesale Club's headquarters which has 7 clubs in NH and 3 in Maine. As for Costco, the company opened stores in northern New England in the early 90's with warehouses in Colchester Vermont (Burlington)(1993), Nashua (1992) and Portsmouth NH(1992).  Costco also has a warehouse in Danvers MA (1990) located less than 30 miles south of the NH border. The Portsmouth store only lasted from 1992 to 1996.  


From 1996 to 2023, Costco's footprint never changed in Maine, NH and Vermont. In 2021 however, a new larger Costco was proposed to replace the existing small and busy one in Nashua. In 2022, it was announced that Maine's first Costco would open in Scarborough. The first store in the state of Maine will open in November 2023.  In October 2023, a project to partially demolish and replace the largely empty Steeplegate Mall was announced in Concord NH. It features a Costco. Other rumors indicate possible new Costco warehouses for Salem and Windham NH in a near future.

OVERVIEW:

Costco is linked to another warehouse club chain called Price Club which opened in 1976. It was founded by Sol Price. Costco started in 1983. It went public in 1985 and at that time had 17 warehouses. By 1986, Price Club had 24 warehouses and that same year, it expanded to Canada. In 1993, Price Club and Costco agreed to merge after a previous offer by Walmart to merge Sam's Club and Price Club. Also in 1993, Sam's Club acquired many Pace Membership Warehouses from Kmart Corporation and rebranded them to Sam's Club.  The company changed name to PriceCostco and had 206 locations. Since then, Costco expanded to many countries. As of 2023, the company operates 861 warehouses in 14 countries.

COSTCO CANADA OVERVIEW:

In Canada, Costco actually started in 1986 with Price Club (Club Price in french-speaking Quebec).  Price Club was the only player in the Canadian warehouse club market. In the early 1990s, Costco wanted to expand to Canada and open its own stores. It planned the opening of a Costco in Laval Quebec. Shortly before that expansion could take place, Price Club merged with rival Costco in 1993 to form PriceCostco. In Laval, the new Costco store never opened because of a nearby Price Club which converted to PriceCostco. Today, Canada is Costco's second largest market with 107 warehouses. Costco dominates the warehouse club market in Canada. Sam's Club expanded to Canada in 2003 but closed its 6 locations in 2009.

Northern New England locations:

NEW HAMPSHIRE (1)

Nashua (Opened 1992)

Portsmouth (Closed 1996)

MAINE (1)

Scarborough (Opened 2023)

VERMONT (1)

Colchester (Opened 1993)

Pictured above: the former Costco Wholesale of Portsmouth NH (Opened in 1992 and closed in 1996).

This website is not affiliated with the Costco Wholesale Corporation. For the most up-to-date information about Costco. visit their official website.