Costco Cracks Taiwan Market

Article: "Costco Cracks Taiwan Market," Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2010, page, B5.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303395904575157910930303400.html

Costco is building sales globally by tailoring its merchandise to local tastes. The new Taiwan store carries Tide detergent and Pepperidge Farm cookies but with flavors such as sea cucumber. It also carries mahjong sets and stewed beef noodle soup. This article can be discussed in Lamb, Hair and McDaniel's Marketing 11e, page 167 and page 65 in MKTG4.


Questions:

1. One might think that selling fish and beef is pretty much the same everywhere. Yet, Costco does it differently in Taiwan. Explain what those differences are and why it is important to customers.

2. Consumers in Taiwan are not use to paying a membership fee. Explain how Costco overcomes this problem.