American Express

American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was founded in 1850 and is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company's logo, adopted in 1958, is a gladiator or centurion whose image appears on the company's well-known traveler's cheques, charge cards, and credit cards. During the 1980s, Amex invested in the brokerage industry, acquiring what became, in increments, Shearson Lehman Hutton and then divesting these into what became Smith Barney Shearson (owned by Primerica) and a revived Lehman Brothers. By 2008 neither the Shearson nor the Lehman name existed.In 2016, credit cards using the American Express network accounted for 22.9% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the United States. As of December 31, 2019, the company had 114.4 million cards in force, including 54.7 million cards in force in the United States, each with an average annual spending of $19,972.In 2017, Forbes named American Express as the 23rd most valuable brand in the world (and the highest within financial services), estimating the brand to be worth US$24.5 billion. In 2020, Fortune magazine ranked American Express at number 9 on their Fortune List of the Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2020 based on an employee survey of satisfaction.

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Comercial Mexicana

Tiendas Comercial Mexicana S.A. de C.V., colloquially known as La Comercial and La Comer, was a Mexican hypermarket group that operated mainly in Mexico City and Central Mexico. It was founded in 1930 and operated by Controladora Comercial Mexicana. From 2016 to 2018 it was owned and operated by Soriana, which also owns Alprecio stores. Comercial Mexicana, including its different store formats, was the third-largest supermarket chain in Mexico as of 2014.

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Costco

Costco Wholesale Corporation (doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores (warehouse club). As of 2020, Costco was the fifth largest retailer in the world, and the world's largest retailer of choice and prime beef, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, and wine as of 2016. In 2021, Costco was ranked #10 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.Costco's worldwide headquarters are in Issaquah, Washington, an eastern suburb of Seattle, although its Kirkland Signature house label bears the name of its former location in Kirkland. The company opened its first warehouse (the chain's term for its retail outlets) in Seattle in 1983. Through mergers, however, Costco's corporate history dates back to 1976, when its former competitor Price Club was founded in San Diego, California. As of March 2022, Costco has 828 warehouses worldwide: 572 in the United States (including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), 105 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 30 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 16 in South Korea, 14 in Taiwan, 13 in Australia, four in Spain, two each in France and China, and one in Iceland. Costco regularly opens new locations. The company will open warehouses in 2022 for the first time in New Zealand, and Sweden.

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Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega, S. A.

Omega S.A. v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 541 F.3d 982 (9th Cir. 2008), was a case decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that held that in copyright law, the first-sale doctrine does not act as a defense to claims of infringing distribution and importation for unauthorized sale of authentic, imported watches that bore a design registered in the Copyright Office. It is contrasted with Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Costco bear

The Costco bear is a giant teddy bear manufactured by Hugfun International Inc. and sold primarily at Costco stores.

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James Sinegal

James D. Sinegal (born January 1, 1936), also known as Jim Sinegal, is a retired American billionaire businessman who is the co-founder and former CEO of the Costco Wholesale Corporation, an international retail chain.

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Most-Favoured-Customer Clause

A Most-Favoured-Customer Clause (MFC) is a contractual arrangement between vendor and customer that guarantees the customer the best price the vendor gives to anyone. The MFC prevents a company from treating different customers differently in negotiations. For example, on July 20, 2011, American Airlines announced an order for 460 narrowbody jets including 260 Airbus A320s. The order broke Boeing's monopoly with the airline and forced Boeing into the re-engined 737 MAX. As this sale included a "most favoured customer clause", the European airframer has to refund any difference to American Airlines if it sells to another airline at a lower price.Big box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco often use their monopoly power to demand MFC from their suppliers. In one anecdote recalled by Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, a frozen-food supplier to both Wal-Mart and Costco accidentally sent Wal-Mart's invoice to Costco by mistake, and as the invoice revealed that Wal-Mart received lower pricing on the same goods, Costco immediately terminated its relationship with that supplier.

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Price Club

Price Club was a warehouse store chain, founded by Sol Price in San Diego, California. Price devised the Price Club concept in 1975 after being forced out of FedMart, another retail chain he founded. Price and a few of his friends put up $2.5 million in capital to open the first Price Club on July 12, 1976 at 4605 Morena Boulevard, San Diego, the former site of a manufacturing building Howard Hughes once owned.Price Club would eventually merge with one of its competitors, Costco Wholesale, and the combined company would eventually take on the Costco name. The original warehouse that Sol Price started Price Club with is still open, operating as Costco location #401. Club membership was initially only available to business customers, but was later opened to certain groups, such as employees of local businesses, nonprofits, and government. The company charged shoppers a $25 annual membership fee to purchase bulk products at discount prices in a no-frills warehouse setting. Price Club's high sales volume enabled Price to give his employees more benefits and higher wages than typical retailers. The company expanded throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In 1992, Price Club earned $134.1 million on $6.6 billion in revenue from 94 locations.Price Club merged with rival Costco in 1993 and the combined company was known as PriceCostco. For a brief period, Price Club and Costco continued to operate as two separate stores with members of either chain being able to shop at both stores with their membership cards.

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Rotisserie chicken

Rotisserie chicken is a chicken dish that is cooked on a rotisserie by using direct heat in which the chicken is placed next to the heat source.Electric- or gas-powered heating elements may be used by using adjustable infrared heat. These types of rotisseries have proven quite functional for cooking rotisserie-style chicken. Leftover rotisserie chicken may be used in a variety of dishes such as soup, chicken salad, and sandwiches.Rotisserie chickens are often sold at a lower price than raw whole chickens in grocery stores. Two explanations are often given to justify this phenomenon. First, some grocery stores may use rotisserie chickens as loss leaders to bring shoppers into the store. The logic behind this theory is that if customers come to a store for its rotisserie chickens, they will buy other products while they are there, too. Second, rotisserie chickens are often made with poultry that is about to reach its "best by" date. By cooking and selling the chickens, the grocery stores are able to recoup some of their expenditures.

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Sol Price

Sol Price (January 23, 1916 – December 14, 2009) was the founder of FedMart, Price Club (which ultimately merged into Costco) and PriceSmart. He is considered a pioneer of the "warehouse store" retail model.

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