Costco Connects with Manufacturers

Costco, the big box retailer which has filed suit in Washington State to ship direct, has announced plans to share almost real-time data with certain manufacturers. IRI, the scan data people, and Costco have announced plans to test what is called the Costco Collaborative Retail Exchange (CRX) program. BBD has learned that Costco has chosen a category leader for each product category, and in the beer business they chose Anheuser-Busch. Under the program, Costco will deliver nearly real time item-level