Costco is unique in its food court prices, they must be heavy into loss leader territory at this point. It was a really good deal back before covid, and these days it’s basically daylight robbery compared to anywhere else.
Not only that, but the food kiosks (at my local location, anyway) don’t scan your costco membership either, so you can just walk in the exit and get some food without signing up.
I think it could make sense not to scan for memberships and allow nonmembers to buy the food even through it’s a loss leader. If people are coming in for the good deal, especially if they’re coming regularly, there’s a chance they’ll buy a membership and start shopping there
They always get me on higher end frozen food items I end up wanting to try, even though they’re not really a better deal than what I could get at Safeway.
I’d love to see how that works out for their higher end memberships, where you get money back for buying shit.
I think you have to spend something like $6000 over a year to make back the total cost of the membership… but that’s not completely unreasonable if you get quite a few things there regularly.
(This is in Germany) My upper middle class Family of six spends around $250 a week on groceries, which comes out to over 15k a year, so that would definitely be reasonable for families etc.
If true, that explains a lot. Where I’m from the pizza slice alone costs that much.
Costco is unique in its food court prices, they must be heavy into loss leader territory at this point. It was a really good deal back before covid, and these days it’s basically daylight robbery compared to anywhere else.
Not only that, but the food kiosks (at my local location, anyway) don’t scan your costco membership either, so you can just walk in the exit and get some food without signing up.
I think it could make sense not to scan for memberships and allow nonmembers to buy the food even through it’s a loss leader. If people are coming in for the good deal, especially if they’re coming regularly, there’s a chance they’ll buy a membership and start shopping there
Costco’s business model is wild if you look into it. Pretty much every item they sell is a loss-leader for their actual money maker - memberships.
They always get me on higher end frozen food items I end up wanting to try, even though they’re not really a better deal than what I could get at Safeway.
I’d love to see how that works out for their higher end memberships, where you get money back for buying shit.
I think you have to spend something like $6000 over a year to make back the total cost of the membership… but that’s not completely unreasonable if you get quite a few things there regularly.
(This is in Germany) My upper middle class Family of six spends around $250 a week on groceries, which comes out to over 15k a year, so that would definitely be reasonable for families etc.
:laughs in several hundred dollar Costco bill: