Costco (COST +0.51%) offers a unique shopping experience at its warehouse stores that sets it apart from the retail competition. In this video clip from "Beat & Raise," recorded on Sept. 24, Fool.com contributors Brian Withers and Neil Patel take a look inside Costco's stores to see what's behind the company's continued success with customers.
Brian Withers: They have a couple of cool pictures of inside the warehouses here. Beyond food, this is typical Costco, this is a perfect example. I guess these are full zip fleeces and so they must have gotten some good deal on zip fleeces for 12.99. I mean, you go to Kohl's is 40 bucks, you go to Farfetch, it's $600, but at Costco, it's 12.99 and they're just out on this table. I don't know if you can see this, this is a table built of like warehouse. It's the same stuff that these warehouse shelves are built right down here and they're just laying out there. You might not have been in the market.
I imagine most people who go to Costco go, I want to get one of those zip fleeces, [laughs] but they sell out of these stuff. Pretty much I don't know that there's really smart with how they buy, and wine department, produce, bakery, I really like their meat when I was a customer. You can certainly get really high-quality meet at a reasonable price. But yeah, when you're making your Costco trip and if you're a Costco member, you know you just need to go get something, [laughs] you're not sure what you're going to come back with in your basket, it's quite the experience.
Neil Patel: I think if it's not already, I think Harvard Business School needs to make a case study about Costco and their Kirkland brand, because I think I read a piece recently about how the Kirkland brand products are manufactured by some of the competitors, like Starbucks makes Kirkland coffee basically and so Duracell makes Kirkland batteries or something, so they're getting some of the best manufacturers making products for Kirkland just because Costco's distribution is so massive. That's something that's also pretty impressive about them.
