Costco environmental factors: global and domestic marketing decisions

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Impact of Environmental Factors on Marketing Decisions of Costco Wholesale Corporation

Environmental factors consist of all the factors and activities which have a considerable impact on the running of the business. Environmental factors have a powerful impact on the normal functioning of the any business, especially in the marketing decisions (Pagell & Halperin, 2000). These factors pose challenges and threats to the success of any business. In order to deal with such environmental factors a firm should enhance its core competencies and make sound strategies (Staff, 2009). There are various factors which would have deep impact on these new services offered by the firm. The firm should make a strategy after considering these factors.

David Jobber describes in his book that with the help of this analysis, the company becomes more competitive and effective to implement the various strategies (Jobber, 2001).

Costco Wholesale Corporation is one of the biggest organizations in the retail industry, which operates at the global level. The company was founded by James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman (Costco Wholesale Corporation, 2009). On the basis of the sales volume, the company is considered among the world's largest membership warehouses (Costco: About Company, 2009). The company has taken the position of the five largest companies in the United Sates in retail Industry. The Headquarter of the company is situated at Issaquah (Washington) in the United States (Costco Wholesale Corporation Reports January Sales Results and Comments on Earnings Outlook for Its Fiscal 2009 Second Quarter, 2009). The company runs its operations at the international level within different segments and covers about 60-70 billion US dollars as revenue (Costco: About Company, 2009).

The economic segment of the external environment has a great interaction with the scope of the company's business prospects and business strategies of the companies to handle the marketing environment (Chidrawar, Hatch & Kramer. 2009). These factors are essential to evaluate the marketing mix strategies of the company at the global level. These factors usually cannot be controlled by the businessmen and therefore, a careful analysis of the environment is essential to discover the problems and find their possible solutions.

The economic condition of Costco Wholesale Corporation mainly remains consistent, as the growth rate of the sales of the company is consistent. This is because; on the yearly basis, the growth of the warehouses of the company is moderate and the growth of the membership of the company also runs on the proper track (Taking Stock in Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST), 2008).

The economic factors on which the performance of Costco is based are the systems of tax payment, investment and allowances, sophistication of moving and raising capital, prices of the commodities, fiscal and monetary policies and rates of exchange, etc. (Staff, 2009).

Trade practices and agreements occupy an important place whenever we talk about international business or international operations. Moving of goods and services across borders needs to be controlled through some practices or agreements. Hence, they need to ...