This past Thursday - August 22nd - there was a grand opening of a Costco in Sharpsburg, GA. This would normally not be worthy of mention but in this case, Sam's Club #4789 happens to be right next door. In my experience, this is the first time I've ever seen a Sam's and a Costco next door to one another. I've seen them as close as a quarter mile away, in a much more densely populated area and thought that was pretty close. This is altogether something different. #4789 is a medium volume sales club that relies very heavily on weekend business and, like most other clubs, is struggling mightily to adjust to the new way of doing things that the company has adopted recently. The average associate inside the club is somewhere between ignorant and oblivious as to what this move by Costco entails. Do they smell blood in the water? Do they believe, after doing their market research, that the area just 45 minutes southwest of Atlanta is ready to support three (there's a B'S in Newnan about 15-20 minutes away) wholesale store chains? It is true that the area is growing fairly well but is that growth really enough to rationalize a Costco, too? My feeling is that Costco knows that Sam's is teetering and they've known this for quite some time. I've also heard it echoed repeatedly over the years that they're so in tune with what is going on with Sam's, they often know well enough beforehand, what virtually all their moves are going to be before Bentonville has even made them. If that's the case, then things could get very interesting. They also opened another new Costco the same day up in Loves Park, IL which happens to be about 15-20 minutes away from Club #8297 in Rockford. That location is notable because Rockford is an area where a great deal of money has left town over the last 20 years and gone north - right in the direction of where they put the Costco. I'm familiar enough with this area, too, and I NEVER thought Costco would plant a flag there. So this is two examples of what seem like daring moves by this company's main rival and it tells me that there's a deathclock ticking on two clubs, one of which is over thirty years old was pretty high volume as recently as five or six years ago. The other club has only been open for around seven years total and now they've got a new neighbor in a setting that was nothing but empty fields on the adjacent three corners.
Tick-tock for 4789 and 8297.