There are four across the country and I am have been told that they are the highest-grossing Costcos in the world. Can this be true you ask? Well, let's do some quick math. Seoul has about 10 Million people and 2 or 3 Costcos...that is 3-5 Million people per Costco. Livonia, Michigan has 2 (maybe 3 Costcos) and has maybe a few hundred thousand people (totally guessing), which means that is about 100,000 people per Costco. Yeah, I would say it is believable.
With so many people, Costco is an outing and not just a quick stop-over after work. On a Wednesday at 10AM, we waited in Costco parking lot traffic for 1 hr...just to get into the parking garage (this does not include the time to travel from my house to Costco).
There are Costco-employees directing traffic because there are so many people...
Also, since space is at a minimum, Costco is on two floors versus the open plan layout of the U.S. This creates a problem of getting those large Costco carts between the two floors...enter...escalators that can handle shopping cars. The guy at the top (in the yellow vest) helps pull your cart off the moving escalator, as the it can be a bit tricky coming off that incline with 50 lbs of stuff in your cart.
Needless to say, my days of running into Costco for that quick trip are temporarily over...at least until we get back to the states. It does bring a little bit of home to Korea though.
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| This is the light at the end of the tunnel... we are just about to enter the garage. |
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| There is a significant number of people just directing traffic. |
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