The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hetrick: TRX would not exist if it had accepted early Costco pilot
“In our case, you know, we had product problems that ended up coming out shortly after We passed this up. Had I not passed it up for that reason, there would have never been a T-Rex.”
Wang: Sony and Panasonic avoided Costco to protect Best Buy and Circuit City
“People like Sony and Panasonic, and they don't want to deal with Costco. They give Costco the leftovers because it's, ah, they want to protect their existing dealership with Circuit City and Best Buy.”
Costco rotates products out to make shoppers miss them and get excited
“Costco likes to find the newest best thing and be the first to market with it. They will bring you in and then want the customer to miss you and then be excited when you're back.”
Wang: Costco bought Vizio TVs for $2,400 and sold them for $2,500
“They were, they would buy like 2400, sell it for 2500 dollars.”
Costco's Jim Sinegal Advised The Container Store to Cut 8,500 SKUs
“Jim Senegal, the Costco guy, and I had a running debate for years. We had 10,000 products. He said, you should have 1500 products.”
Nick Green: Limited retail assortment improves discovery and retailer economics
“They have an order of magnitude fewer items in there, which actually creates for a better discovery process. And of course creates for better economics on their side.”
Guayakí reached $100 million in revenue without Costco, Walmart, or Amazon
“We got to a hundred million without Costco, Walmart, Amazon, any of those big retailers that are usually a big part of it.”
Costco CEO Jim Sinegal Initially Refused to Sell Trampolines Over Safety
“The CEO of Costco was a man named Jim Senegal, and Jim said, I will not sell trampolines.”
Costco CEO Jim Sinegal Refused to Sell Trampolines Over Safety Concerns
“The answer was yes, and that was Costco. The CEO of Costco was a man named Jim Senegal, and Jim said, I will not sell trampolines.”
Stafford: Bobo's bakes in-house and relies on co-packers during Costco spikes
“We have a little bit of co-packing, but mostly we do all of our own baking. And when things get very busy, when we're heavy with Costco, we use our co-packer.”
Perfect Snacks Made $12,000 to $40,000 Per Four-Day Costco Roadshow
“Where a Costco, you could walk in, and we would commit to a four-day road show Thursday through Sunday, and you'd set up your 10 by 10 booth, And we could move anywhere from a really slow moving Costco, you know, 12,000 dollars in revenue in those four days to…”
Former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal refused to sell trampolines over safety concerns
“Did any retailer in America believe that trampolines were dangerous, and so dangerous that they wouldn't sell them? The answer was yes, and that was Costco. The CEO of Costco was a man named Jim Senegal, and Jim said, I will not sell trampolines.”
Winer: Hexclad Did $40,000 in Its First 10-Day Costco Trial
“And in the road shows, your schedule, they're 10 day events. So I think when we finished, we were flirting with Around 40,000 U.S. Dollars in that 10 day period.”
Wang: Costco had no market share for TVs around 2004-2005
“Around, I think, 2004, 2005, I used to sell computer monitor at Costco, so I know the people a little bit. I had a connection there, so at the time, Costco had no market share for TVs.”
Wang: Costco's break-even margin was around 9.5% during Vizio's launch
“At that time their break even is around nine and a half percent. And they don't want to make money on merchandising anyway. They just want to make money on membership fee, right?”
Jaju Pierogi Projects $4 Million In Sales Thanks To Costco Expansion
“This year we should do almost four because we're actually getting into Costco, which is exciting.”
Nick Green: The retail club trifecta requires curation, membership, and private label
“So the pillars of curated assortment membership model to enable better pricing, And then private label to cut out steps in the supply chain and introduce higher quality products that are also better pricing. That was kind of the trifecta.”
Klane: Club stores provide a massive packaging billboard effect over standard grocers
“Just because it's limited SKUs and just a massive display, you almost get this like billboard effect with your packaging that you don't necessarily get a regular grocer because you have potentially two to three SKUs on shelf in a way bigger category with more …”
Strava founders negotiated with Costco to source Garmins for early users
“There was a whole period of time where Michael and I were negotiating with the likes of Costco and others, just literally trying to buy Garmins so that we could Either sell them or give them away to friends so that we could get people onto the platform.”
Costco pays suppliers within 15 days, easing cash flow for growth
“But unlike retail stores or food service accounts, they pay you within 15 days. So you have not paid your vendors yet, and you get the money from Costco. So they're an excellent, excellent company to deal with, especially in your growth period.”
Sukhi's targeted retail expansion using Costco and Whole Foods sales data
“We didn't have money to buy data. For example, you know, there's lots of companies that will sell you data of where this demographic a person is. And this is this, that the other we would follow the lead a lot of times of Costco's or of Whole Foods, where we s…”
Velez: Costco accepted Back to the Roots after seven years of rejections
“Guy, we presented to Costco's lawn and garden department seven years in a row and got turned down every single year. They've just announced they're launching us this coming spring spring, 20, 22, seven years later, same exact merchant as well.”
Holmes: Springfree invested $5M to build its own factory in China
“And we skipped apart guy, which is in 2008, we decided to build our own factory in China because we weren't satisfied with the quality. So I invested about five million dollars in building a Chinese factory.”
Holmes: Costco placed an order for 3,265 Springfree trampolines in 2005
“Worked out to be about 3265 pieces in oh five.”
Holmes: Costco accounted for basically 90% of Springfree's Northern Hemisphere distribution
“Virtually in, in the northern hemisphere and our only. We were selling direct in places where we could, but they were basically 90% of our distribution.”
Garza: Siete Foods is in over 16,000 retailers including Costco and Target
“So we're now in A little over 16,000 retailers were in places like Kroger and Costco and Target and Walmart”
Holmes: Costco Represented 90% of Springfree's Distribution Prior to 2007
“Virtually in, in the northern hemisphere and are only. We were selling direct in places where we could, but they were basically 90% of our distribution.”
MadeGood's First Order Was 300,000 Contract-Manufactured Bars for Costco
“Our first order was actually for Costco for a contract manufacturing brand, and it was 300,000 bars.”
Harrington: Yasso's initial Costco order resulted in a $100,000 check
“I remember the check was about a 100,000 dollars, which for us at that moment, because they were first and the terms are so great it actually came in much quicker than some of our retail customers, and we needed that cash to keep up with the demand.”