New Rival for Tiffany: Costco

Costco is recently offering a yellow diamond ring for $180,000 on its website. The unbelievable thing about all of this is not that they expect someone to pay almost $200,000 for a ring (because people will), but that this is Costco selling it!!

A few months ago, I read a very interesting article about how Walmart has only one competitor that it fears- that was not K-Mart, Target, or Sears, but Costco! Costco isn't the biggest competitor Walmart has, but it has proven resilient in the face of this supergiant. It is famous for selling products in bulk at very low prices. In this instance, the yellow diamond ring is selling for $84,000 less than the IGI estimation. That is a pretty big discount.

It is very interesting to think Costco, the largest wholesale club operator in the United States could be giving Walmart a run for its money (and in this case, Tiffany's). You can hardly go to a community in the U.S. without seeing a Walmart somewhere close by. Costco can't compete with Walmart with its nearly omnipresent status. However, this unlikely competitor is proving to be quite a match.

While this latest news of Costco selling a diamond ring for quite a bit of money doesn't really affect the market in any way, it is another piece of evidence that Costco may be here to stay and may be more willing and ready to battle Walmart than retailers like K-Mart were. It is will be very interesting to follow this company in the years to come.