Costco announces trio of new stores

Costco has unveiled the locations of three new stores it will open as part of its expansion plans.

The bulk goods giant will add the trio of stores to the three it has opened in the past 18 months, bringing the company’s national footprint to 11 stores.

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Marsden Park, 49km north-west of Sydney, will be the first to welcome the membership-based supermarket franchise, while Melbourne will receive its fourth store and Brisbane its second.

Every new Costco in the future will likely have a petrol station on site

And Australia’s major regional centres are next in line.

Speaking on A Current Affair, Costco managing director Patrick Noone hints the company is already scouring for more potential sites, including one to accommodate its first store in the Northern Territory.

Costco now has eight Australian stores after opening at Docklands in 2009.

“In Melbourne (we are searching for) maybe four or five, Sydney maybe four or five buildings,” Noone says.

“The second-tier cities, Newcastle and Wollongong and Darwin and those places. They’re the places for the next growth, for sure.”

Costco opened its first Australian store at Melbourne’s Docklands precinct in 2009 and last year collected a record $1.3 billion in sales.

Noone says Costco’s aggressive expansion plans include more on-site petrol stations to match its Costco-branded petrol outlets at five of its stores, which have lured customers with petrol prices as cheap as $1 per litre.

“Every new Costco in the future will likely have a petrol station on site,” Noone says.