The Costco Connection: a Lifestyle Magazine for Costco Members.

Costco Connection is a magazine sent free to members of the warehouse club Costco and includes articles which regularly tie into the corporation along with business, political, health, and social articles. (Wikipedia.org)

The monthly Online Edition combines a replica of the print version with bonus content. Cover stories and popular features such as Buying Smart are extended with supplemental material. This electronic version makes the magazine easy to find, print and share articles with family and friends.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world based on sales volume, headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, United States, with its flagship warehouse in nearby Seattle. Costco's Canadian operations are based near Ottawa, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco) operates membership warehouses based on the concept that offering its members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private-label products in a range of merchandise categories will produce high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover. It buys the majority of its merchandise directly from manufacturers and route it to a cross-docking consolidation point (depot) or directly to its warehouses.

The Company’s depots receive container-based shipments from manufacturers and reallocate these goods for shipment to its individual warehouses, generally in less than twenty-four hours. The Company’s warehouse format averages approximately 140,000 square feet; newer units tend to be larger. Its warehouses operate on a seven-day, 69-hour week. It carries an average of approximately 4,000 active stockkeeping units (SKUs) per warehouse in its core warehouse business. (Google Finance)

Costco.com: Offering thousands of items you won’t find in your local Costco.

21 The replacement place
If you’re missing a piece from a place setting, or just broke Granny’s tureen, Replacements Ltd. can help.
BY CHRIS PENTTILA

25 Host with the roast
A hearty beef recipe for the holidays.
BY TIM TALEVICH

35 Book Pick: World Without End
Ken Follett builds on his The Pillars of the Earth with a new historical page-turner.
BY J. RENTILLY

39 Book Beat: I dare you
A couple of gals from Philly teach girls to go low-tech for fun.
BY STEPHANIE E. PONDER

41 Book Beat: Follow the mascots
A little bird told the Aryals to publish books, and they listened.
BY HOPE KATZ GIBBS

43A visit with Diana Krall
The Grammy-winning jazz singer makes a Connection.
BY WILL FIFIELD

51 Flying with children
Tips to prepare kids for plane trips.

54Your year in review
How to write the perfect holiday letter.
BY LOIS SWAGERTY

View The Costco Connection, November 2007

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from the publisher’s desk
Ginnie Roeglin

NOVEMBER IS ONE of our busiest and most exciting months at Costco. Our employees, warehouses and Web site are ready for the busy holiday season ahead, and our bakeries are already looking forward to baking more than 1 million pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving!

We invite you to check out costco.com in addition to our warehouses for your holiday shopping this year. If you haven’t yet explored our Web site, you may be surprised to find thousands of items, most of which are not available in our warehouses. The treasure hunt continues online!

However, you won’t be surprised by high prices. We follow the same low pricing rules online that we do in our warehouses. Our prices generally include shipping and handling direct to the address that you specify. You can learn more about our online selection in our cover story on page 56, and in our special costco.com holiday gift guide on page 58.

November is the perfect time to order your holiday photo cards from the Costco Photo Center. You may bring your photo to the warehouse to place your order, or simply upload your order from home, as described in our article on page 92. While you are at it, you can organize your photos into albums, create photo calendars or even publish your own book of special photos and text, all at the Photo Center on costco.com.

The old phrase “a diamond in the rough” is a rather fitting description for the Costco jewelry department. A cement-floored warehouse may not look like a plush jewelry store, but you will find the same (or better) outstanding-quality diamonds and gems at Costco at a fraction of the price offered by other national retailers and jewelry stores. Our jewelry buyers and gemologists explain our jewelry standards and values in Pat Volchok’s “Buying Smart” article on page 94. You could buy hundreds of little blue boxes with the savings!

We are excited to offer special savings on gifts and more in our warehouses and on costco.com during Thanksgiving weekend. As a special thanks to our members, we are also pleased to distribute our sixth annual Costco cookbook free to the first 2 million shoppers nationwide in our warehouses. The delicious recipes, such as the hearty holiday prime rib roast featured on page 25, will also be available online.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Costco!

from the editor’s desk
David W. Fuller

RESEARCH HAS SHOWN over the years that nearly as many people read a magazine by flipping from the back to the front as read it from the front to the back. That’s why many magazines reserve their back page (sometimes called the ender, but perhaps it is as much a starter) for some of their best material.

In the case of The Costco Connection, we start things off (or end your reading experience) with “Member Connection,” a collection of brief pieces about the achievements of Costco members. This department has grown to be perhaps my favorite department in the magazine. Like a father with his children, an editor should not have a favorite department, but I do.

Why this one? It is because “Member Connection” casts its net across the wide universe of Costco members and always hauls in fascinating stories of people making a difference and businesses forging new paths—tales of eccentricities and enlightenment.

This one brief page (two in some issues) captures, I believe, the magic of Costco, which is in its members. A lot has been written by the press in recent years trying to get a handle on why Costco is such a success. There is no denying that our core values have a lot to do with it: obeying the law, respecting our members and suppliers, treating our employees well and rewarding our shareholders.

But I believe it is more of a two-way street. Having members who are so innovative, involved and incurably active adds an energy to our operation that makes it unique. And that is what “Member Connection” celebrates.

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