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.

Cover Story: The Vision of Vizio

CEO’s drive helps company thrive
William Wang reaches his vision in Vizio

TO SAY IT HAS BEEN AN EVENTFUL EIGHT YEARS for William Wang is a gross understatement. In November 2000, Wang traveled to Asia to meet with creditors in a desperate attempt to keep them supporting his failing computer monitor company. Then came the plane crash.

The Singapore Airlines 747 he was on took off on the wrong runway in Taiwan, struck a construction site and broke in two. Eighty-three passengers and crew members were killed in the accident. Wang was among the survivors, and three years later he founded Vizio, now one of the world’s leading flat-panel television makers. In this interview in his Irvine, California, office, Wang talks about the crash, how Vizio started, the company’s model for success and plans for the future. ...

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from the publisher’s desk
Ginnie Roeglin

WILLIAM WANG, founder and CEO of TV manufacturer Vizio, has an amazing success story. After he survived a horrific plane crash, his resolve helped him build what is today a leading manufacturer of large flat-screen HDTVs. Wang has succeeded by following many of the same guiding principles that underlie Costco’s success, including low prices, top quality, discipline, focus and strong management. We are proud to sell Vizio TVs in our warehouses and on costco.com. You can read about William Wang’s story and vision in our interview with him, starting on page 24.

The kids are back in school, and you can help get them off to a great start with many of the new books and educational products in this issue. The little ones will enjoy Jamie Lee Curtis’ eighth book, Big Words for Little People (page 42). If your child is just starting off in school, you may want to try Jump Start World (page 38), a computerized personalized learning system, to help your child master math and reading skills.

Children and adults alike will enjoy popular author Christopher Paolini’s latest fantasy, Brisingr (page 41), available later this month. You’ll also find Fall Savings on back-toschool items in our warehouses and on costco.com this month, including desktop and notebook computers, a wireless mouse and keyboard, printers, memory cards and even lunch-bag snacks.

Fall is a great time to spruce up your home. On page 31, you’ll find our buyer’s pick and tips for floor care. This month we also have special offers on a variety of home products in our warehouses and on costco.com, including HDTVs, home theater seating, bedroom and dining room furniture, kitchen cabinets and appliances, cleaning supplies and more.

Enjoy savings this fall from all of us at Costco!

from the editor’s desk
David W. Fuller

WE KEEP ADDING NEW READERS despite a trend in the opposite direction being experienced by many monthly magazines. So, I’d like to describe for these newbies (and review for longer-term readers) what The Connection is NOT.

It is not a soapbox. Unlike some corporationsponsored publications, The Connection is not here to rant and rave about management’s opinions.

It does not cover partisan politics. (Although each month our Debate department looks at an issue of national concern through balanced opinion pieces on both sides, interviews in our warehouses with our members and a straw poll of readers.) The magazine does not offer gossip about celebrities. (Although we often feature articles about or even by celebrities who have something worthwhile to say.)

It is not a niche publication. Instead, it is very much a general-interest publication with articles on subjects ranging from travel to health, small business to technology, wines to automobiles. Like our warehouses, it is pretty much a one-stop undertaking.

The Connection is not a catalog. Only a very small portion of the items we carry are mentioned in articles or advertisements in any one issue. And the ads generally don’t even contain prices. That’s because our buyers often still are negotiating deals at press time. We rely on our members trusting us to always strive to have the lowest price on a product.

Finally, The Connection is not something we want cluttering your mailbox if you would rather not receive it. In fact, we try to make it easy for you to unsubscribe or to receive our electronic replica edition. (See “Subscription Changes” on page 7 of the Dialogue department.)

Naturally, we’d prefer that you give us a few issues to demonstrate what The Costco Connection IS: a membership publication that endeavors to deliver value just as Costco does with every product it sells.

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