Results tagged “costco”

Seattle's publicly traded big businesses have only eight more days to announce their second-quarter results by the SEC-mandated August 14 deadline. Already, it seems that the Puget Sound Business Journal has nearly used up an entire thesaurus-worth of words that can describe losing a ridiculous amount of money. So far, we've heard: Jones Soda loses $2 million, Costco July sales fall, ZymoGenetics loses $27M in Q2, Nordstrom's July sales slid and Radio, TV ad dips hurt Fisher in Q2. Well, here's to hoping for better third-quarter results and positive, uplifting descriptors.

Yes, yes, Seafair is this weekend, but if you are a parent of a gradeschooler, or a nerd, or both, then there is a much more important event. Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince is playing at the Pacific Science Center IMAX.

So much for the idea of having separate Costco stores for home furnishings: the company just announced they'll be closing their two home stores in Kirkland and Tempe, Arizona this summer. The whole point of Costco, in our experience, is that all the great wholesale deals are under one roof. We can buy exorbitantly large bags of frozen potstickers, twelve-pound sacks of Jolly Ranchers, the latest Harry Potter book, a new shelving system, a couch, and a diamond tennis bracelet for our beloved, all in the same fluorescent-lit warehouse for cheaper than just about anywhere else, and then we can go home and cry over our debit card balance. Lesson learned, right, Costco?

We can't get enough stimulus, and still we're exhausted. We feel like Richard McIver, who just announced his retirement from Seattle City Council, saying "I want to go home and sit down." Should we ever be up for a walk, West Seattle Blog has info on the plans for Alki Point's sidewalks and Mayor Nickels asks you to volunteer in his State of the City, which is a good thing since few of us still have paying jobs. Maybe we'll find work at Costco or Target, two stores that will stock the soon-to-be wildly popular Starbucks instant coffee-flavored product.

Conference call this morning with Uncle Howard, who says there's nothing to worry about, really. Those Dunkin Donuts commercials, nah; America runs on Starbucks, folks. Micky D? A low-rent interloper. Cut the price of $4 lattes and you imply that Starbucks might not be a premium company after all. Coffee taste tests? Don't even think about it. Loyalty cards for sale in bulk at Costco, on the other hand, that's classy. The market lapped it up; shares jumped 8.5 percent.

Just in time for the holidays, Starbucks is teaming up with Costco to offer gift cards at a 20% discount: five $20 cards for $80. Regular gift cards in the Starbucks stores for 10% off. USA Today notes that it's high time Starbucks did something to reward its core customers, especially in these tough times. Shelling out (coughing up?) $4 for a double-tall may not be a whole $700 billion, but might cause some hesitation. Promotion starts November 4th; company announces third quarter earnings (losses?) a week later.

Was two weeks ago in this space, Seattlest James took up the cudgel for Gypsy dinners, falling right into the outlaws' trap. No and no, wrong and wrong. These guys aren't romantic Zorros, they're behaving like petulant teenagers.

Wait, before you answer, one detail: Costco's private label hef will be brewed by beloved local micro-operation Gordon Biersch.

We have a friend who tells a story about taking a broken TV back to Costco -- four years after she bought it. She didn't expect them to, but Costco gave her store credit. She upgraded to a nicer TV for not a lot of money, and they won her heart for life. (Lesson learned: It never hurts to ask.)