Costco and Corbis Images Team Up to Provide High Quality Prints and Posters to Consumers

Dec. 1, 2010 - PRLog -- SEATTLE and ISSAQUAH, WA (December 1, 2010) – Costco Wholesale Corporation ("Costco")  and Corbis® Images (www.corbisimages.com), a leading visual media provider for the creative community, today announced a new partnership making it possible for Costco members to purchase prints, posters and giclée canvas prints of thousands of exceptional Corbis Images of art, photographs and illustrations.

Costco, the largest membership warehouse club in the North America with more than 577 locations around the world, has launched the new Art and Image Gallery on Costco.com Photo Center, (www.costco.com) which features a collection of more than 20,000 digital images exclusively from the world-famous Corbis collection.

Corbis Images has curated selections of famous museum art, decorative prints and images including children’s art, decor and fine art as well as historical, vintage and contemporary photography. Costco members are able to browse galleries or search for specific images.

The prints, posters and giclée canvas prints can be ordered for in-warehouse pick up or for mail back in just about any format that Costco 1-Hour Photo produces, from high-quality standard photographic prints (8x10 inches to 12x18), poster size prints & boards (11x14 up to 20x30 inches) and museum-quality giclée canvas prints (up to 16 by 48 inches).

The greatest value to Costco members is that images may be purchased at no additional charge over the regular print price.  Members simply pay the standard Costco printing charges for the use of the Corbis images in the Art & Image Gallery.

“The Costco Art and Image Gallery is a great new benefit to Costco members that makes printing high quality prints and posters simple, fast and affordable,” said Glen Hutchinson, Photo Operations Manager at Costco.  “Through our arrangement with Corbis, we provide our members with the security that they have the copyright permission to use the images as they like, and that the images are all properly licensed for their use – even for resale.”

Images can be used for a variety of purposes ranging from home decor, workplace decor, seasonal or subject-themed decor for hotels, restaurants and other small businesses, educational purposes and more. The new Art and Image Gallery is available throughout North America.

“Costco is demonstrating leadership and innovation in how they are leveraging the Corbis collection of digital photography and illustrations to deliver an exciting new product to their members,” said Gary Shenk, CEO, Corbis Images. “Consumers have a huge appetite for images, and Costco is an ideal channel to make our iconic images more widely available.”

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Costco currently operates 577 warehouses, including 420 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 80 in Canada, 22 in the United Kingdom, seven in Korea, six in Taiwan, nine in Japan, one in Australia and 32 in Mexico. The Company also operates Costco Online, an electronic commerce web site, at www.costco.com and at www.costco.ca in Canada. The Company plans to open up to five additional warehouses in the next two months, prior to the end of calendar year 2010.