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- How Costco Became a Beloved Retail Giant in Japan
How Costco Became a Beloved Retail Giant in Japan
& Most-Used AI Chatbots
How Costco Cracked Japan (When Others Couldn’t)
Why It Worked:
Costco entered in 1999 with humility—90% of products were localized for Japanese consumers, while still keeping its “American warehouse” identity.
Its blend of novelty (bulk shopping, hot dogs, U.S. imports) + practicality (value pricing, Japanese staples) made it stand out.
Why Others Failed:
Western retailers like Carrefour and Tesco leaned too heavily on their home playbooks, ignoring local consumer habits. Japanese shoppers found their layouts, product mixes, and service styles off-putting.
Costco struck the right balance—local sensitivity without diluting its global model.
Impact Beyond Shopping:
Costco boosted rural economies by paying 60% above minimum wages, forcing local competitors to raise pay.
Towns actively courted new warehouses as engines of tax revenue, jobs, and even population growth.
Built for the Long Haul:
Costco didn’t drift from its mission: low prices, consistent quality, and strong employee treatment.
Today, with plans for 60+ warehouses by 2030, Costco has become a cultural fixture—where sushi trays sit alongside bulgogi bakes and $1.50 hot dogs.
Takeaway: While Carrefour and Tesco tried to make Japan fit them, Costco reshaped itself just enough to fit Japan—without losing its DNA. That cultural discipline is what made it stick.
ChatGPT Owns Half the Chatbot Market
ChatGPT is still the clear king of AI chatbots, drawing 46.6 billion visits in 2025—almost half of all global chatbot traffic. That’s more than four times the combined traffic of every other player on the list. What’s more, its usage grew 106% year-over-year, proving it isn’t just holding ground but widening the gap.
The nearest challenger is China’s DeepSeek, which logged 2.7 billion visits—a meteoric 48,848% jump from last year, but still less than 4% of ChatGPT’s volume. Following behind are Google’s Gemini (1.7B visits), Perplexity (1.5B), and Anthropic’s Claude (1.2B), all showing solid momentum but collectively still overshadowed by OpenAI’s flagship.
The rest of the field looks fragmented: Microsoft Copilot (957M), Elon Musk’s Grok (687M), and Poe (378M) cater to specific niches, while Meta AI (130M) and France’s Mistral (101M) barely register with sub-1% shares.
The big picture? ChatGPT has indeed established itself as the default interface for AI.
The Leverage Paradox: In the AI Era, Productivity Treadmill Gets Faster
John Maynard Keynes once predicted that technology would give us a 15-hour workweek—a century later, we work more than ever. That's the leverage paradox: AI makes tasks easier—but in a competitive world, that means we have to work even harder to keep up.
Think of it like this: climbing a staircase used to be tough, but with AI it's now an escalator. Yes, it's easier to move up—but everyone’s on it, and the escalator is going much higher. That means content creators, coders, and entrepreneurs need more than AI-generated “first drafts” to stand out—they must craft, refine, and differentiate.
To win in this crowded digital race:
Iterate, don’t one-shot. AI gives you the rough draft; polishing matters.
Be a purple cow in a herd of clones. Stand out by being different, not just better.