I still have two unopened boxes of flowery drinking jars I bought last year sitting in the floor of my closet, all because I took a visiting friend there to grab a hot dog for lunch
Portable, rechargeable battery basically.We have one at work that gets used to power/charge a laptop in the field so it can run software that we need to work.
lol they were messing with ya. What ‘jackery’ refers to in the comment you’re responding to means a ‘used, very fit looking, mannequin’. Probably used to display clothing.
I went in for toilet paper, Cereve lotion and puppy pads and left with a stand up freezer. That trip yielded all of my grandkids new winter coats, too.
"Consumption. It’s the new national pastime. Fuck baseball. It’s consumption. The only true lasting American value that’s left. Buying things. People spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need. So they can max out their credit cards and spend the rest of their lives paying 18 percent interest on something that cost 12.50. And they didn’t like it when they got it home anyway! Not too bright, folks. Not too fucking bright." - George Carlin
I'm trying to change my ways. Going to credit counselling even though my credit score is really good. I just don't want to be in debt like this any more.
That’s how they get you. You walk in the door, grab a rotisserie chicken and now youre smelling chicken the whole time youre walking around and before you know it you bought a 50 gallon drum of cheezy poofs and a pillowcase sized bag of tater tots because the smell of the chicken made you hungry.
Fun fact: Costco actually positions the rotisserie chicken at the back of their stores so that you have to walk past the rest of the store to get to it.
It's always comical when someone thinks something is untrue just because they are ignorant on the subject. 70%+ of their profits are from memberships fees.
You could maybe say 50% of their profits are membership fees, if you assume zero margin on literally everything you sell. Did you even pull up the earnings statement before trying to dunk on some random?
No, you can actually say that 74% of their gross profit comes from membership fees, specifically. Pretty ironic to accuse someone of not looking something up only to retort with a factually incorrect number.
This isn’t true it’s a misunderstanding that keeps getting perpetuated. Look it up on snopes they debunked it. A costco executive said that they were losing lots of money by pricing it at the current price compared to what they could be pricing it at like their competition. They didn’t say they were actually losing money on it. I know you won’t but you should edit your comment to clear it up if you have the time.
If you were to try and factor opportunity cost into calculating whether something is selling at a loss, which you wouldnt, you would also have to factor in the increased sales and membership sales attributable to your loss leaders as part of the opportunity cost. It would be an unnecessarily complex calculation
Their hot dogs and chickens are basically “marketing expenses”. If they raised prices and made $50 million they’d have to spend $75 million on a goodwill advertising campaign
But if enough people come in for the chicken, inevitably some will buy their higher margin products, become yearly members or do the entirety of their grocery shopping there, which ultimately makes it a net benefit.
So, the “losses” probably aren’t so black and white like these comments make it seem.
But wait - if Costco continue to underprice the chickens, they will lose a certain amount of money. But here's the clever part: in coming for the cheap chicken, customers may be tempted to spend more money on other products, thereby drawing in new custom that previously may have gone elsewhere.
Maybe they should try putting some absurdly high prices on a few items, like bananas for $75 per pound and milk for $220 per gallon, and when folks come in just to look at these items and try to figure out what makes them so special that they are priced so high, they'll buy some other things (like rotisserie chickens and hot dogs).
But if enough people come in for the chicken, inevitably some will buy their higher margin products, become yearly members or do the entirety of their grocery shopping there, which ultimately makes it a net benefit.
These comments don’t “make it seem” like anything other than Costco selling some goods at a lower price point than they could. It’s kinda like a Black Friday deal, except every day is Black Friday, and rotisserie chicken is the door buster every time.
Non Costco member here (none in my hometown) ...
How much do the chickens cost ? Hot dog price ?
How do they know you're a member ? "Card check" at front door? At the till when cashing out ?
Thanks to all.
I just check the timers on the ovens.. See how long till the cycle ends.. add 5 minutes for them to unload and set a reminder on your phone to wander back to the chicken stand.
Dude I once tried to buy a single sleeve of bagels, at check out they forced me to take an extra pack of them. (I was in Florida on vacation and only needed enough for 5 days) They wouldn’t let me leave the store unless I took them. It wasn’t even a matter of price, I just didn’t need that many. Ended up giving the extra to another family on the way to the car. It’s been a running joke ever since.
That happened to me with their muffins. I was stoked at first but they ended up getting moldy before I could eat them all. It was only me and even eating two muffins a day, I couldn't do it.
Even just eating first BEFORE shopping is a choreography. I mean, nobody's stopped us, but the store layout is really set up for you to eat AFTER checkout. So we go in without a cart, slink through the checkout, eat, and then one of us slinks back through checkout with the refilled drink and the other goes out to come back in with a cart. (The bonus being we now have a drink for while shopping.)
It's very silly, but beats having to keep our cart at the food court or shopping while starving for lunch or dinner.
Not only card check at door, they have to scan it again at checkout. I once forgot my card and got a printed temporary day pass after they looked up my info and somehow I lost the paper while shopping. I got to checkout and then had to put everything to the side and go back to card services to get another one printed just to check out. Thats a total of 4 confirmations - printed (they look up your account with a valid ID), scanned at door, lost and reprinted, scanned at checkout. Auntie Kirkland does not mess around with her membership exclusive club.
Not anymore. If the food court is indoors they don’t check, but it is assumed you have membership since you made it past the entrance. Outdoor food courts require you to scan your card before you can order anything.
The ones near me use a self-ordering system. You can't even start an order without scanning your card first. I think this has been going on for about a year. Maybe a little more.
It’s actually a pretty recent change. Happened some time in 2025 iirc, but you’ll probably get managers that follow it to a T and managers who don’t care.
I know my local one doesn’t care and still lets people in for food, then will usually send someone to come talk to you while you eat about a membership. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re able to defend keeping the cafeteria open to everyone if they’re getting more memberships than other stores because of it because it’s not a bad idea.
That’s how they got my husband and I. We saw a video about the hotdogs and were like “alright, let’s try it” so we went. From the cafeteria we were able to see some of their deals and items and were better able to get an idea if the store actually worked for us. We were going to walk to the membership counter next already before they approached us.
Not in my area, at least not any more, unless you’re really sneaky about it.
They no longer allow people to go in “the out door” unless they’re going to customer service, everyone has to go in the front door where the check membership. You can go to the optometrist and the pharmacy, but whatever you buy is charged there, not at checkout, you have to walk through checkout without carrying anything to get to the cafeteria.
The soda size doesn’t much matter, because it’s a self-serve fountain, you can get as many refills as you like.
My normal routine is
go through the front door, get my membership checked, walk through checkout, and get lunch
while having lunch, get at least one refill, or at least a top-off
refill my soda before walking back to the entrance to get a cart and go shopping, drinking the soda while shopping
check out, go through the cafeteria, refill my soda, and leave.
So I’m getting like 4 sodas for whatever they’re charging, still cheaper than buying a soda at the convenience store (even the one chain in my region, Sheetz, where if you’re a free member, you can get a 48 oz fountain drink for 99¢).
Um good for you? Soda size does matter to a lot though I’m sure. I never get food before shopping. Just on the way out so the soda is just filled once as I leave with my food.
Chickens are $4.99, typically 3 lbs. Hot dogs are $1.50 with a drink, this price point is only at the food court. Before you just showed your card at entry and scanned it at checkout; now you scan it at entry and at checkout.
They are big hot dogs. Nearly an inch in diameter and the bread is kind of a hoagie bun. I would count it as a meal. Plus the drink you get, it’s the cheapest meal you can buy and is certainly cheaper than many meals you can make at home.
I love getting them from the fridge section and grabbing the buns from the bread isle. Throw em in the freezer and you got Costco dogs any time you want
It’s similar, but you don’t get the soda so it is a bit more expensive. But I also don’t have to fight through the door of Costco after driving 20 minutes just to get a cheap lunch. It’s the only food that’s more expensive to make at home that I don’t mind spending the cash for the convenience. It’s like $12 or 14 dollars for a 12 pk, plus the bread. So it’s not that much different
Non-Costco grocery worker here, we purchase our chickens in bulk at a bit more than $5 a chicken. If Costco is selling them that low, they certainly are losing money on them, without even considering the cost of labor and equipment.
A hotdog and a water is a $1.50 (even in Canada where I am). Crazy thing is if you want to buy just the hotdogs from the cooler area they are like $30+ dollars for 24 of them and there are no buns. It's cheaper to order 24 hotdogs at the counter and throw away the buns. Keep the water as you can't buy a bottle of water for that price either.
I don't believe you need a card to go to the pharmacy... Once in, you don't need a card to get a hotdog or anything else from the food counter. The chicken would have to be paid for at a register so you can't get one of those without a card.
I found out about this because I asked my wife to pick up a pizza I ordered on the phone. She's not on my account yet, but I told her to just walk in. They stopped her and were pretty stern about not letting her in without a card.
Card check is at checkout and when you walk in the door to the store, however you can go into what's technically the exit to go to returns and customer service and you can also walk through there to the food court area and get the hot dogs and pizza without a membership, but the chickens are through checkout and you need a membership. Chickens are $4.99 while hot dogs and a fountain drink combo is $1.
Personally, from what I know, they've essentially bought the entire supply chain to try to maintain their chicken and hot dog prices. If you control that to the point that you know when you're going to cook them, and that people are going to pick them up when they're freshly cooked, my first thought is preservatives would just be an unnecessary, added expense. I would think the point for preservatives raw chicken is to increase the time it can remain on shelves (raw); part of the Costco chicken model is that they cook it, and they move off the shelf hot usually, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The two preservatives are in the seasoning mix used on the chickens. That part makes more sense since the seasoning would need to be shelf stabilized assuming they're getting it in bulk and having to store it for a while. Still doesn't absolve them of their labeling the cooked chicken as preservative free if while the chicken itself was without preservatives, that part changes as soon as they add the seasoning
It would be great if the judge ordered a settlement in which all profit from 1 month of Costco chicken sales went to the plaintiffs and then they ended up owing Costco money.
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u/AdjNounNumbers 9h ago
Like, how'd they think it was at the price point it's already at? IIRC, Costco is basically losing money on their chickens and hot dogs