Price Club was an American warehouse club chain. Founded in 1976, it merged with its competitor, Costco Wholesale, in 1993. The original Price Club warehouse in San Diego, California, is now Costco location number 401.[1]
History
Price Club was founded by Sol Price in 1975 after he was forced out of FedMart, another retail chain he had founded. Price and several friends invested $2.5 million to establish Price Club. The first Price Club location opened on July 12, 1976,[2] in San Diego, at the former site of a manufacturing building previously owned by Howard Hughes.[3][4]
After leaving FedMart, Price noticed that small businesses in San Diego either ordered directly from four or five large wholesalers or they bought locally from relatively small