As yesterday I wrote about how Costco made me cry, today I want to sing Costco's praises. Costco is doing some wonderful things in Taiwan for both consumers and the way business is done.
The first is that it's lowering prices. Many items are just unreasonably high in Taiwan. This is not because of manufacturing costs, or import costs. They are just given an extremely high price point. Costco is doing a lot to combat this. Pictured above are some bath towels for a little under 10 bucks. These same quality of towels in any other store in Taiwan? At least four times as much. Towels aren't the only things, as there are many other goods that are cheaper in Costco. And I don't mean things that are in bulk, I'm referring to single products. It's not all great though, as in America Costco has some ridiculously cheap electronics, like TVs, but here in Taiwan they are still absurdly high like the rest of high end electronics are.
Another thing Costco is bringing to Taiwan is customer care and service. Costco is pretty much the only store in Taiwan that has a return policy on opened goods. They are also proactive in their customer care, as I got a letter from them in the mail stating that there was a recall on a product I had purchased and to come in for a replacement. Which just isn't done by any other company. But the icing on the cake is that they went out of their way to further compensate me on top of the replacement, something I doubt a Taiwanese company will ever do.
But the best thing that Costco is doing, is that they are raising the confidence and status of consumers in Taiwan. Because of Costco's policies and prices, Taiwanese consumers are not only shopping in Costco more, but they are expecting these services, prices, and best of all, respect when shopping at other places. Which is a joy to see, as Taiwan's sales culture is typically to browbeat their customers.
