And again, 30-ish years in operations, a year in real estate traveling in the world and then six or seven years in merchandising. So I think it is pretty seamless. And to see them, the two of them work together over the last two years, almost two years since Ron became President, it’s very similar to what I saw during those two years when Craig became President, and then two years later, Jim retired and Craig took on the CEO role as well. And so that’s pretty much steady as she goes.
Charles Grom: Got you. Great. Happy holidays. Thanks.
Richard Galanti: Thanks.
Operator: We’ll take our next question from Scott Mushkin with R5 Capital.
Scott Mushkin: Hey, Richard. I guess, I just wanted to think about the potential clubs in the U.S. I know it comes up sometimes, but obviously, you added eight. It just seems like there’s maybe more runway you can hear in the U.S. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. And then I had a quick follow-up.
Richard Galanti: Sure. Well, if we were to open the 31 this year, that would be somewhere in the low 20s, the 23, 24 in the U.S. And I recognize a few of those are business centers, which is we continue to add as well as regular — most of the regular warehouses. And I would say that, yes, I guess the story I’d share with you is six or eight years ago when it was roughly 60-40 or 70-30 U.S.-Canada versus the international — other international. We were asked, what would it be by today? I’d say, well, by today, it will be 50-50. Well, today, you’re asking the same question, it’s 60-40 or 70-30 today, what will it be? And I think it will trend that way over time, but we are finding more opportunities in the U.S. Clearly, our average sales volume per location is higher today than we would have expected ourselves thankfully, six, seven years ago, what would it be by now.
And we are finding those opportunities. So I view that as good news. We still — we’ve got a lot of things going on to drive International, but International will be 6 or 7 units this year. And then opportunity to grow last year, international was — is 9 or 10 and that’s more of a timing issue.
Scott Mushkin: So then my follow-up is around traffic and also like the growth you had in appliances and TVs. You’re just kind of going in a different direction than a lot of people. So what’s driving the share gains in those categories? But also, are you guys doing anything specifically different to drive the traffic numbers you’re seeing? Because I mean, they’re pretty amazing, given the environment.
Richard Galanti: Yeah. Well, look, I’ve always said I think the biggest attribute of value is the lowest price, given quantity and quality of good or service and then certainly add to that the trust that our members have. I think as it relates to specific things like I pointed out, like appliances and even tires, its value. We — and the — and having acquired Interval three or four years ago now called Costco Logistics, we’re doing a lot of business there. And I think we’ve gotten a better job of communicating what the value is, not just showing what the price of the exact item is at some of the other big retail competitors on some of these big items. But then you add in delivery, take away the old product used, the installation, delivery, take away the old product for disposition, it’s significant savings. Go do a price check of some of those things compared to our competition, that’s where you’ll see the strength.
Scott Mushkin: Perfect. Thanks.
Operator: We’ll take our next question from John Heinbockel with Guggenheim.
John Heinbockel: So Richard, I’m wondering if one of the things you may do differently here, we’ve talked about this before is leaning into personalization more and where you are on that journey, particularly with Ron coming in.
Richard Galanti: Right. Well, we’re — first to our business was fixing the foundation. We’re in the middle of re-platforming our e-commerce. It’s not a big bank where we’re going to put the switch one day, we’re bringing things over and that’s in progress. It was, I think I mentioned last — probably last quarter, it’s a two-year road map on that, and we’re halfway through that. And so I’d say very little so far. If we’re in the second inning, maybe we’re in the third inning now. But we — a lot of the focus has been on, first of all, making sure doing small improvements. We certainly got the — on the 5 star rating, it got up north of 4.5 on that, and we’re getting better at the site every time. But I think you would see personalization and, first of all, targeting and then personalization more over the next couple of years, honestly.
And we’re fine with that. We’re the first to our business getting the foundation right. And we’ve made a lot of progress. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this call talking about the new things, the enhancements we’ve made to the mobile site and the e-com site, but we’ve done a lot.
John Heinbockel: And maybe as a follow-up, you talked about the international opportunity and it’s still very well underdeveloped. So what’s the hindrance to getting to — because you’re in a lot of countries now, 15 to 20 annual openings, maybe that’s a big ask. But is it just quality of real estate because I would imagine operationally, it’s not a human resource issue. Is it purely a real estate issue?
