An Interview With Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) CEO Craig Jelinek

Jelinek: We just saw that Japan, when we went actually over to Japan and Taiwan, we saw a pretty good economy over there. Keep in mind, both of those markets started out very slow for us. Korea was very tough for us, but over time you just whittle away and good things start to happen as long as you continue to bring value in the marketplace and your consumer figures it out.

We don’t do a lot of advertising. You have to sell memberships and they have to feel comfortable. It is a little intimidating, when you walk in there to a Costco and you see the big sizes and you start to ask yourself, “How is this going to work for me?”

They used to say you can’t sell swing sets over in Japan because they don’t have big homes. That’s one of our biggest selling items, was a swing set. People figure these things out.

In terms of going in there, it takes time but you build your membership and once you start to get a reputation and a marketplace, and your reputation comes from doing the right thing and word of mouth for the consumer, good things will start to happen.

All those Asian countries, we’re now very successful in.

The article An Interview With Costco CEO Craig Jelinek originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Austin Smith.

Austin Smith owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends PriceSmart. It recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com, Apple, Costco Wholesale, and Whole Foods Market.

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