kinda the same mechanics as credit cards combined with economies of scale.

People pay for memberships and some people don't break even on the costs.
Then the benefits of buying things in bulk means that the storefront is selling more product and the consumer might be consuming at a higher rate than normal. Bulk also means less effort needs to be put into inventory tracking

the benefits when you tack on a 60-120$ membership can be misleading. Because while I spend 100$ on groceries for myself, I might buy a costco membership for 60$ and then wind up paying 50$ per month off of the bulk benefits. Even if I were to break even at 50$ + 50$ the storefront is still taking a benefit of less costs of labour. The membership model is good for their buisness and maintaining traffic

>>3620
Damn ok, that's a pretty good profit from memberships alone. Certainly works a lot better from an economic standpoint than all the government subsidies given to sustain Walmart.

Was just reading an article on the differences between the two, found it interesting: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/121715/walmart-will-never-be-costco.asp

>>3621
Well you wouldn't break even at 50+50 since it's not a monthly membership, it's annual. Which kinda makes their profit even more astounding since that means there's just that many members with almost zero advertising.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/04/18/there-is-no-walmart-tax-every-tax-day-we-get-told-there-is-and-every-year-its-still-untrue/#4b57cdd241fe
actually guess that's wrong about walmart being government subsidized

>>3618
>cooking it to just before becoming crispy
You should cook it just a little more.

The trick is that memberships work best for the consumer when they're used in a family unit. In my area we have Sam's Club and my mom has a club membership. I go to Sams every week for basic stuff like water bottles, milk, and eggs. My mother and sister also go and we pass the membership card around as needed.
If you're alone you're not breaking even.

>>3625
I mean bacon normally costs me like $7-9 a pound so just by getting bacon like a dozen times I more than break even.

>>3624
I don't like when it gets dry and crunchy as much as when it's perfectly ready.

I think for Costco you need to spend like $2000 (or more?) for the expensive membership to be worth it. I can't remember how it works, but you get some sort of rebate thing? My sister talked about it once. I'm sure it's a psychological thing that encourages people to shop there instead of other places, and of course the rebate isn't them actually giving you free money, just another incentive to come back to the store.
Pretty inventive ways to not actually benefit the customer but make it seem like it is. I guess that's how business is supposed to work once you become a big franchise instead of a local mom and pop store or whatever.

Yes, the savings are a little difficult to calculate. It should work out or people wouldn't bother, but they make profit off of the memberships and that's considering inventory sales as well. It;s no charity

>>3625
The trick is membership stores are explicitly (that is they say the words verbatim out loud) trying to invoke the sunk cost fallacy.
So by charging X$ for memberships they're trying to trigger people into trying to get their money's worth. Lots of foot traffic to and into the store. Once people walk into the store for eggs or milk they're bombarded with in store advertising and while most people probably won't walk by a 2000 dollar play-structure for the kids and buy it, you might do something like getting a dozen muffins you didn't plan to buy that trip. Or a chair. A comfy blanky. etc. Even the most stalwart autist isn't immune to ads and impulse buys.

Personally once I got kicked off my mom's membership I started buying a couple gift cards a year. For the price of floating Costco 75 bucks a year no interest I could make 3 trips into the store with 25 dollar gift cards.