I think the mere fact that we are talking about them right now indicates they are a major player. Just as a previous poster said, you will get clients all the time asking how their equipment compares to Costco stuff. And for the most part, Costco stuff is a joke and their is no comparison, but nonetheless its something that installers will have to deal with when customers ask. The Qsee kit that you indicate John is actually a pretty good system, especially for that price, I am sure there are exceptions to some of Costco's equipmet and this is one of them. The problem for me as a distributor and any other distributor is when they sell that system at that price, there is no way I can compete with that pricewise. If I would have to guess, they are taking a loss on that system as a loss leader possibly, I dont know. But most of our customers are installers and price is important to them but not the most important. Tech support, customer service, relationships, etc ranks up there with them and this is something that Costco cannot compete with us on.
Dont know how much Costco sells anually but as far as Qsee, they do a ton, literally. Another colleague in this industry noted that they studied their import records before, and estimates they sell 500 DVR's a day. I know Qsee sells through many channels, but I assume a large chunk of that is through Costco. When you are doing that kind of volume, you can make very minimal margins and even take losses on occasional products and not get hurt.