A warehouse club, also called a wholesale club, is a retail business model in which customers pay an annual membership fee for access to a large, no-frills store selling merchandise at close to wholesale prices, serving both individual shoppers and small businesses. The format was pioneered by Sol and Robert Price, who opened Price Club in San Diego in 1976 to serve small businesses holding resale certificates before broadening membership eligibility more widely. It expanded rapidly in the early 1980s with the founding of The Wholesale Club in Indianapolis in 1982, Costco in Seattle in 1983, and Sam's Club the same year, followed by BJ's Wholesale Club in 1984; Costco and Price Club merged in 1993 to form what was then a 206-store chain generating 16 billion dollars in annual sales.
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