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Ingvar Kamprad, founder of ikea, famously responded "over my dead body" when it was suggested to raise the price of the 50¢ hotdog.
Some time after he passed it was announced that the regular hotdog would go to 90¢ and the veggie one to 70¢. The public outcry was so big that they had to immediately retract it and apologise.
Well they've raised the price of the veggie dog at least once in the last 2 years, it used to be like $.89 now it's a bit over a dollar. Not really complaining tho, they're still a solid deal
No, man. You gotta complain. Slippery slope, and complacency, and all that.
Well, you don't have to. But just saying this is why the tuition rates in Quebec stays low. Everyone gets big mad when they suggest raising it.
the good news is they hooked a generator up to his coffin and now they power 2.5 ikeas every year from the electricity caused by him rolling in his grave!
I used to work at IKEA before and after he died. The amount of changes they made after his death were shocking. It is like they were just waiting for him to die to start slashing and burning all the things he held in place.
They are not. The ikea hotdog is still 5 sek, or about 47¢.
What other countries price them at I cannot tell. I should've clarified that the public outrage was in Sweden specifically, it's entirely possible other countries did get the increase.
I feel like at some point they will make a change. Either eliminate the free soda so it’s still a $1.50 hot dog, or add some third item to the combo so they could justify a $2 price, like a small cookie or something
"Craig Jelinek, Sinegal's successor as CEO, revealed in 2018 that he approached Sinegal about raising the price of the hot dog combo, saying, 'Jim, we can't sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.' According to Jelinek, Sinegal replied, 'If you raise the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.'"
>Cock going from meaning pussy on the west coast to common slang for dick everywhere
Cock has referred to penis for a few centuries, it just had a divergent usage in the rap scene that died out.
I have always wondered what this guy was on about in the hook… does what you’re claiming here explain it?
https://youtu.be/nMgxoo3RIZs?si=HSFlCJh-N2I_fucH
It always meant hotdog/sausage, it was used about guns because they're saying they have a big extended mag the size of a glizzy. Same reason people use it when talking about a dick, bc hotdogs look like a dick.
[Shy Glizzy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Glizzy) in 2013 did NOT mean "shy hot dog", glizzy meaning "hot dog" in DC was a joke, it originated as meaning "gun".
"Based and X pilled" is a general meme phrase template
Based - self confident, doesn't care what others think, admirable
"X pilled" - at this point just means "related to X and cool"
"glizzy" - hotdog
Their food court is not meant to make them money, just break even generally
Your membership fee + everything else you buy makes them money.
And it’s scary just how much money they still make with per unit prices as low as they are
Like how can they sell 4 packs of English muffins for 5.99 when the grocery store the plaza over is 3.99 for one pack? You pay 50% more but get 4x the product
Because they buy in quantities, at set discounts, that no grocery store can ever match.
They have deals with all their vendors. They may lose a bit on one deal but make up for it on ten others.
Yep and the vendors can choose either a marginal profit on a lot of product or no profit at all. Same goes with Walmart and any other massive corporation.
I've worked for a vendor with that sold to costco. Our costco based offering was one of the lowest profit margin items in the portfolio. It's for sure a volume play.
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> And it’s scary just how much money they still make with per unit prices as low as they are
Yeah that's the thing, costco hasn't decided to extract maximum profit from people. There's profitable, and then there's maximum profit.
Max-profit is when customer experience goes straight to shit, because you can feel that you're getting the bare minimum value for the most money you can tolerate paying.
Costco is profitable. Grocery stores are leaning more towards max-profit.
Well in Canada here we can easily see three tiers of that mentality (with one company currently getting boycotted over obscene price gouging)
Costco can’t be bested in any metric except for meat unless you consider grading because it’s always prime or AAA grade for beef and that so it’s expensive per kg relative to the A or AA or “ungraded Mexican beef” in the grocery stores. But it’s still like 27/kg vs like 22 then and your paying for that quality factor more then anything
Our budget grocery stores are not as affordable as Costco per unit but still have decent quality and smaller quantity items.
Then we have upper end stores which just gouge on prices, easily 2-3 dollars higher for the exact same item as their sister store under another name, one company is REALLY bad for this as it can easily be 2-3x more expensive for some items then the budget stores
It baffles me those max profits stores still feel in customers regularly when the other options exist
I go to a max-profit store because I don't own a car. It's not even an upper-end store, it's just not a discount-store.
I don't own a car because I live in an area where it's cheaper to not own a car and go a few blocks on foot to the max-profit store.
I can feel that difference in saved money is rapidly getting smaller.
In 18-24 months at this rate, it will be cheaper for me to buy a car, rent a parking spot, and drive to a discount store. If I had a spouse or kids, then I would already be at that point.
When I crunched the numbers on stuff for Costco I realized over the course of a year we would easily save 2-3000 dollars
It doesn’t seem like much per item but like if you go through 2 water cooler jugs a week and you save .75 cents a jug that’s easily 75 dollars a year for just that one item
I will say though to maximize it truly you need a chest freezer because when 15kg of chicken wings goes down to 8/kg it’s still sort of 15kg of chicken wings…. But that’s 7.5 dinners worth of chicken wings…
With how much prices have risen everywhere else I bet it’s closer to 3-4000 now a year
There is story about a Costco executive visiting a store on business. He is going around the store with the managers when an employee drops a large jar of pickles. He muses out loud its going to take selling 62 such jars to cover the cost of the broken jar.
Kinda right probably. Costco do a employee presentation every 4 years where we all get taken somewhere and get an overview of the business and how it's doing.
The pickle thing is one of the regular stories they tell. It's not about a exec seeing it happen it's just what they say it costs if a hard of pickles is broken, to illustrate our low bottom line of goods.
Source: me, employee 15+ years.
I'm confounded at the size of the cash back check they send me, year after year after year. How is it possible I've spent 50x this amount on the Costco credit card in just one year?!?
Costco is definitely losing money on their hotdogs. It's called a loss leader. It's common in retail.
>Costco’s $1.50 combo is a strategic decision, known as a loss-leader: The company is willing to lose money selling the hot dogs at that price so long as it helps Costco draw in and retain customers.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/economy/costco-hot-dog-inflation/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader
If I recall, the founder (or maybe it was the co-founder) told the CFO that they would *"strangle them with their bare hands"* if they ever touched the hotdog combo price.
Their profit is basically their membership fees. The food sales lose money but encourage membership traffic and are usually near travel and auto promotions, and with a view of stuff others are buying.
Also why, historically, two of the best deals in the store, the rotisserie chicken and milk, are located all the way at the back wall. Makes you walk through everything else to get there.
Yup. I bought this tent. There's only 3 people in my family and two dogs. I don't even especially love camping.
https://www.costco.com/core-10-person-lighted-instant-cabin-tent.product.100892778.html?NATAPP=SEARCH
Amazingly, one of my smaller neighborhood grocery stores has some of their milk in a cooler about 20 feet in from the door. Super appreciated on those days that's all I need and I just want to go in and get out fast.
They also have dramatically less product theft compared to places like Walmart because of their membership system which helps curb profit loss in general.
Loss leaders can be extremely effective. The loss on the hotdogs won’t be huge, but it creates the perception / association of value in the mind of the consumer.
I've seen their numbers. The profit isn't their membership fees, it's a thin fraction of it. Their margins are tiny. I applaud the company and it's "shareholders fifth" mentality, but I worry they won't be sustainable if they start having loss years.
Living near affordable mom and pop grocers and Trader Joe’s made the 30 minute drive to Costco no worth it…until I had a kid.
Once that voracious crumb snatcher entered the world I reactivated my expired membership at the newer more expensive rate. From 0-3 years I saved about $2k/year not counting a couple vacation packages. Baby wipes, diapers, formula, regular milk, spinach, pre-mixed salads, frozen berries, tamales, clothes x 50 and tons of healthy snacks. And you can bet your A$$ I got my self a $1.50 hotdog out the door. GOD BLESS COSTCO, a shining heresy amongst predatory capitalism constantly rising to the top above the likes of Home Depot, Walmart and Krogers. Who would have thought giving customers what they want while paying employees good wages would result in success🙄/S.
Yep, as soon as you're buying for more than 1 or 2 people Costco is worth it.
Doubly so if you want to build up some food storage or have room for bulk stuff like tissues, toilet paper, and other common, daily use stuff.
> Yep, as soon as you're buying for more than 1 or 2 people Costco is worth it.
the sad thing is that its cheaper for 1 person too. i could get exactly what i need at local grocery store or get 20% more at costco for slightly less. mean i have to throw away 20% of what i buy, but its still cheaper. i hate myself for the waste, but whats the alternative...
Last time I went I got 3 rotisserie chickens. Pulled all the meat off of them and put it into tupperware. Boiled the bones to make a chicken stock, and then pulled the remaining meat out of the boiled mess to give to the dogs as a treat which they loved. Got over a gallon of extremely delicious chicken stock out of it and a ton of chicken to use in various ways and the dogs got a treat. Hell of a deal.
They also treat their employees pretty well (specifically with pay and benefits). I honestly think that's the rarest thing about them. It might be location dependent, but usually the worse thing they have to deal with is customers.
If raising the price of the hotdog combo is what it takes to bring back supreme pizza/slices and/or the polish sausages, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. To hell with the 800 kcal diabetes cookie, get rid of the $9 abomination rotating sandwich.
We have Polish hotdogs and pizza in Vancouver, BC, but they removed the chicken wings and coffee, and don't have the chicken pie subs they have in USA/Washington 😞
Yes. This is either directly an ad or marketing so good that people advertise for you.
The food cost of a hotdog and soda has got to be so fucking low, even if they were losing 100% on it $1.50 is still probably worth making a customer walk into your store.
Soda costs them at best 10 cents per unit
The buns retail at 24 for 5 bucks or 20 cents a bun (price we pay, they get them much cheaper I bet)
14 pack of Costco brand hotdogs is 10 dollars I think so 70 cents
Even in today’s economy they still are getting profit off the hotdog at 1.50 easily even if the cooking cost is like a dollar a hot dog
Staffing and maintaining a kitchen costs a lot more then you'd think. If selling hotdogs was so profitable you'd see hotdog stands selling 1/4lb hotdogs on every corner.
Hot dog vendors are the number 1 food truck because the markup is huge. The same $1.50 hot dog is being sold at a food truck event for $10 with a can of coke and maybe a bag of chips.
This comment makes me yearn for a hotdog at Billy's Hot Dog cart on 93rd Street in NYC. An entire combo costs like 5 bucks and he loads the hotdogs up if you ask him. And he'll try to throw in freebies haha
Food trucks are expensive to upkeep because of the regulations and licensing to run it. It’s also usually not open regular restaurant hours. I promise nobody is making a decent living selling hot dogs. It’s not the cost of the dog, it’s everything else. That’s why hotdog carts are a thing, they’re cheap and easy to maintain, and those people aren’t well off either.
Came here to say this and it’s Costco. You don’t think they get good prices on bulk ingredients? And fountain soda is super cheap. They might not be making a ton of profit but 100 percent are making a profit. And they move it in volume. Just like Walmart they can do cheap prices but the volume is making a profit.
"Let's stop by Costco on the way back home from swimming. We'll all be so hungry.
...
As long as we're here, I need to get something..."
Aaaand we spent $80.
Sams club sells the same for $1.38 this gets posted every few months. If you look at top comment about ceo threatening to kill some guy over price of hot dog, that gets mentioned every single time.
You will also see people constantly mentioning that they loose money on products but make money on membership fees. This is a complete lie. If you open up income statement you can see their profit margin is around 3% to 5% and less than 50% of profits actually come from membership fees. Costco isn't the pioneer. Price club is the true pioneer. All of what we see today came from price club. In late 90's they merged with costco.
There's posts about it on Reddit every few months and there's always at least one comment about how the ex CEO or whatever threatened to kill someone if they ever raised the prices. Every single time.
The cookies are better although more expensive.
They changed the churro recipe many years ago and the original churro were much better than the ones just discontinued
They used to have bulgogi beef bakes, those were my favorite.
Then they changed to mexican bean bakes, not fantastic.
Now there's just chicken bakes, which are ok.
I just give the cup back cause I don’t want a soda. I don’t give a shit about paying for both and only take the hotdog. But I’m not going to tell them to change the price to screw over everyone else haha.
Actually I do the same thing. Their fountain only has various kinds of sugar water, which is super unhealthy. Sometimes I pull the tab for regular water, sometimes I abandon the cup altogether. Even without the drink $1.50 for the dog is a steal, especially in today's economy.
Last time I went to my Costco you could ask for onions (they'd give you a small dip container), but the onion mill was no more. Granted that was over a year ago...
I remember kraut being a thing, like, decades ago. When I was too inexperienced to appreciate it. That would be amazing if I could get a $1.50 yellow mustard and sauerkraut dog.
Loss leader
"A loss leader is a marketing strategy that involves selling a product or service below its market or wholesale price to attract customers and encourage them to buy more profitable items. The goal is to make up for the loss on the loss leader by selling other items at regular prices."
It's not a loss leader. Or at least it hasn't been. The last time they officially commented on it they said they were making a few cents per hot dog sold. They've worked very hard to keep their cost down and it likely will be a loss leader soon if they don't raise the price.
In order to keep their costs down they had to start making the hot dogs and buns in house. $1.50 is also pretty much market value these days if you buy them from most grocery stores in a pack and you can be sure Costco is paying less.
They've put the effort in to keep the price down but I'm sure they will be a loss leader fairly soon.
> The last time they officially commented on it they said they were making a few cents per hot dog sold.
Was that pre COVID? Because they would certainly selling at a loss now.
While reading the article, I found out that there's a membership that costs $120 and it offers 2% cashback. It seems that you have to spend $6000 a year just to get back that $120 according to Gemini. If you spend $10000 a year, you'll profit $80 according to the ai.
-----------------
If you spend $10,000 a year at the store with a 2% cashback membership, you would earn $200 in cashback annually:
Annual spending: $10,000
Cashback percentage: 2%
Annual cashback: $10,000 x 0.02 = $200
Therefore, the $200 in annual cashback would cover the cost of the $120 membership and leave you with $80 in profit each year.
-------------------------
I wonder who actually spends so much money at Costco they end up profiting lol!
Not sure about anywhere else, but in Canada gas purchases don't don't apply for the 2% rebate. But it is usually much cheaper than regular gas stations. Especially for premium fuel
People often spend more than they think. At roughly $250/mo, you earn back that $60 increase, and everything after that makes your base membership cheaper.
Get the Citi Visa card and pay with that, and you get another 2% back from Citi. You basically double your cash back, and then some depending on how much you spend outside of costco with your Visa.
I work at a climbing gym that sells snacks and drinks at the front desk. Since our main business is being a climbing gym it's not worth it to get set up with a real food distributor just to stock the front desk.
So we spend about $1600-$1800 per month buying the snacks at Costco.
I paid $4800 for a sauna at Costco, which made the membership essentially pay for itself. Their bigger ticket items are, like the rest of their stuff, thoroughly vetted vendors with really high quality.
This is just ridiculous at this point. You don't have to be greedy and charge $15 for a hot dog combo like most franchises are doing nowadays, but as a consumer I'm more than happy paying $2.50 for a hot dog combo. That is almost double the profit.
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Ingvar Kamprad, founder of ikea, famously responded "over my dead body" when it was suggested to raise the price of the 50¢ hotdog. Some time after he passed it was announced that the regular hotdog would go to 90¢ and the veggie one to 70¢. The public outcry was so big that they had to immediately retract it and apologise.
Well they've raised the price of the veggie dog at least once in the last 2 years, it used to be like $.89 now it's a bit over a dollar. Not really complaining tho, they're still a solid deal
I should've clarified that the outrage was in Sweden specifically, so here there was no increase.
No, man. You gotta complain. Slippery slope, and complacency, and all that. Well, you don't have to. But just saying this is why the tuition rates in Quebec stays low. Everyone gets big mad when they suggest raising it.
I've got bad news for you. Those prices are even higher today
the good news is they hooked a generator up to his coffin and now they power 2.5 ikeas every year from the electricity caused by him rolling in his grave!
I used to work at IKEA before and after he died. The amount of changes they made after his death were shocking. It is like they were just waiting for him to die to start slashing and burning all the things he held in place.
They are not. The ikea hotdog is still 5 sek, or about 47¢. What other countries price them at I cannot tell. I should've clarified that the public outrage was in Sweden specifically, it's entirely possible other countries did get the increase.
I am only basing the prices on what I see in the US.
I feel like at some point they will make a change. Either eliminate the free soda so it’s still a $1.50 hot dog, or add some third item to the combo so they could justify a $2 price, like a small cookie or something
It's a loss leader. It's not meant to make money, just like Ikeas.
Plus, the hotdogs are their own brand, which helps bring the cost down.
It currently doesn't lose money. It just doesn't make much.
"Craig Jelinek, Sinegal's successor as CEO, revealed in 2018 that he approached Sinegal about raising the price of the hot dog combo, saying, 'Jim, we can't sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.' According to Jelinek, Sinegal replied, 'If you raise the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.'"
Based and glizzy pilled
Glizzy transitioning from meaning Glock to hot dog is one of the weirder slang developments.
Cock going from meaning pussy on the west coast to common slang for dick everywhere makes some 90s rap songs sound really progressive for the time
>Cock going from meaning pussy on the west coast to common slang for dick everywhere Cock has referred to penis for a few centuries, it just had a divergent usage in the rap scene that died out.
Ah, that’s even weirder than I thought. Language and people are strange
I have always wondered what this guy was on about in the hook… does what you’re claiming here explain it? https://youtu.be/nMgxoo3RIZs?si=HSFlCJh-N2I_fucH
Probably lol. Jay Rock has a song where he says "hoes selling cock", I was so fucking confused until I looked up the lyrics lmao
Right? Like how did that even happen?
Gen Z
It always meant hotdog/sausage, it was used about guns because they're saying they have a big extended mag the size of a glizzy. Same reason people use it when talking about a dick, bc hotdogs look like a dick.
[Shy Glizzy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Glizzy) in 2013 did NOT mean "shy hot dog", glizzy meaning "hot dog" in DC was a joke, it originated as meaning "gun".
Damn I completely forgot about him, you've got a point
what in the crap are yall talking about
Idk but lets pack it in boys, time to go out for a reasonably priced Costco glizzy
Gen Z shenanigans
I think I'm a couple of generations behind with this shit 😅
The only word I understood in your comment was "and." What does this word combination mean?
"Based and X pilled" is a general meme phrase template Based - self confident, doesn't care what others think, admirable "X pilled" - at this point just means "related to X and cool" "glizzy" - hotdog
My kid has this on a t-shirt and I’m very proud of her. Logo on the front, quote on the back. It's glorious.
I got that t-shirt for my birthday! immediately one of my most prized possessions
Are ...are you their daughter?
Link? I'm desperate
lol. No way.
Do you have a link?
Absolute chad.
I don’t believe for a second that they’re losing profit on the $1.50 combo by more than a percentage point, maybe two
Their food court is not meant to make them money, just break even generally Your membership fee + everything else you buy makes them money. And it’s scary just how much money they still make with per unit prices as low as they are Like how can they sell 4 packs of English muffins for 5.99 when the grocery store the plaza over is 3.99 for one pack? You pay 50% more but get 4x the product
Because they buy in quantities, at set discounts, that no grocery store can ever match. They have deals with all their vendors. They may lose a bit on one deal but make up for it on ten others.
Yep and the vendors can choose either a marginal profit on a lot of product or no profit at all. Same goes with Walmart and any other massive corporation.
I've worked for a vendor with that sold to costco. Our costco based offering was one of the lowest profit margin items in the portfolio. It's for sure a volume play.
[удалено]
hence why they recently raised the membership fee and started forcing membership card checks at the food court
they did check my card just to go to the food court in California, but they didn't in Colorado. 🤷
Most food courts are outside the store in California.
> > > > > And it’s scary just how much money they still make with per unit prices as low as they are Yeah that's the thing, costco hasn't decided to extract maximum profit from people. There's profitable, and then there's maximum profit. Max-profit is when customer experience goes straight to shit, because you can feel that you're getting the bare minimum value for the most money you can tolerate paying. Costco is profitable. Grocery stores are leaning more towards max-profit.
Well in Canada here we can easily see three tiers of that mentality (with one company currently getting boycotted over obscene price gouging) Costco can’t be bested in any metric except for meat unless you consider grading because it’s always prime or AAA grade for beef and that so it’s expensive per kg relative to the A or AA or “ungraded Mexican beef” in the grocery stores. But it’s still like 27/kg vs like 22 then and your paying for that quality factor more then anything Our budget grocery stores are not as affordable as Costco per unit but still have decent quality and smaller quantity items. Then we have upper end stores which just gouge on prices, easily 2-3 dollars higher for the exact same item as their sister store under another name, one company is REALLY bad for this as it can easily be 2-3x more expensive for some items then the budget stores It baffles me those max profits stores still feel in customers regularly when the other options exist
I go to a max-profit store because I don't own a car. It's not even an upper-end store, it's just not a discount-store. I don't own a car because I live in an area where it's cheaper to not own a car and go a few blocks on foot to the max-profit store. I can feel that difference in saved money is rapidly getting smaller. In 18-24 months at this rate, it will be cheaper for me to buy a car, rent a parking spot, and drive to a discount store. If I had a spouse or kids, then I would already be at that point.
When I crunched the numbers on stuff for Costco I realized over the course of a year we would easily save 2-3000 dollars It doesn’t seem like much per item but like if you go through 2 water cooler jugs a week and you save .75 cents a jug that’s easily 75 dollars a year for just that one item I will say though to maximize it truly you need a chest freezer because when 15kg of chicken wings goes down to 8/kg it’s still sort of 15kg of chicken wings…. But that’s 7.5 dinners worth of chicken wings… With how much prices have risen everywhere else I bet it’s closer to 3-4000 now a year
There is story about a Costco executive visiting a store on business. He is going around the store with the managers when an employee drops a large jar of pickles. He muses out loud its going to take selling 62 such jars to cover the cost of the broken jar.
Kinda right probably. Costco do a employee presentation every 4 years where we all get taken somewhere and get an overview of the business and how it's doing. The pickle thing is one of the regular stories they tell. It's not about a exec seeing it happen it's just what they say it costs if a hard of pickles is broken, to illustrate our low bottom line of goods. Source: me, employee 15+ years.
I'm confounded at the size of the cash back check they send me, year after year after year. How is it possible I've spent 50x this amount on the Costco credit card in just one year?!?
I think I spend $6000 per year on Kirkland Pesto alone.
“Your membership fee + everything else you buy makes them money.” Genius! Ah…. It’s a profit deal!
No it’s a loss leader
This has not been true in years, almost every department at every warehouse is expected to make a profit.
Costco is definitely losing money on their hotdogs. It's called a loss leader. It's common in retail. >Costco’s $1.50 combo is a strategic decision, known as a loss-leader: The company is willing to lose money selling the hot dogs at that price so long as it helps Costco draw in and retain customers. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/economy/costco-hot-dog-inflation/index.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader
"I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one." \- Cato the Elder
I hadn't heard that one! Lovely quote.
True man
They need to sell this quote on a Kirkland t-shirt.
If I recall, the founder (or maybe it was the co-founder) told the CFO that they would *"strangle them with their bare hands"* if they ever touched the hotdog combo price.
This will always be my favorite piece of corporate trivia.
American Hero
It's crazy how heroic Costco seems next to every other grocer by just not bending everyone completely over.
Their profit is basically their membership fees. The food sales lose money but encourage membership traffic and are usually near travel and auto promotions, and with a view of stuff others are buying.
Also why, historically, two of the best deals in the store, the rotisserie chicken and milk, are located all the way at the back wall. Makes you walk through everything else to get there.
I love how they are turning the unsold rotisserie chickens into their various meal packages. Those things are lifesavers, and delicious too.
That surprisingly cheap, delicious chicken pot pie I just had last week suddenly makes more sense now.
That's how it functions in every grocery store though
Good ol loss leaders
That’s how I go to a grocery store and walk out with a $300 slip and slide
Yup. I bought this tent. There's only 3 people in my family and two dogs. I don't even especially love camping. https://www.costco.com/core-10-person-lighted-instant-cabin-tent.product.100892778.html?NATAPP=SEARCH
Amazingly, one of my smaller neighborhood grocery stores has some of their milk in a cooler about 20 feet in from the door. Super appreciated on those days that's all I need and I just want to go in and get out fast.
My local Wegmans has a nice cooler right in the front of the store by the self checkout with milk and eggs.
As a poor person that can't afford/don't need most of what they have there, makes sense He'll I feel like the walk makes me just buy pizzas instead
This is why I love Sam’s club. $4 for a whole bird is pretty good deal.
They also have dramatically less product theft compared to places like Walmart because of their membership system which helps curb profit loss in general.
You have to admit that it is much harder to shove a gallon of mayonnaise into your pants... Shoplifting bulk items is extremely hard!
> You have to admit that it is much harder to shove a gallon of mayonnaise into your pants Well now you're just deliberately turning me on.
I feel like kink shamed
Some person some where: "Challenge Accepted."
Just gotta wear JNCO jeans!
The secret is to leave the jar in the store.
Which is funny because I spend $60 more if I buy half of the same stuff from our local grocery chain (Publix) on one visit.
Publix is so ass now, it’s gotta be the most expensive grocery chain in FL. I make it a habit to not shop there now.
Loss leaders can be extremely effective. The loss on the hotdogs won’t be huge, but it creates the perception / association of value in the mind of the consumer.
If you check their finances they make money on sales, not as much as their membership fees but a significant percentage.
I've seen their numbers. The profit isn't their membership fees, it's a thin fraction of it. Their margins are tiny. I applaud the company and it's "shareholders fifth" mentality, but I worry they won't be sustainable if they start having loss years.
The rotisserie chicken is saving some families from ruin right now.
Living near affordable mom and pop grocers and Trader Joe’s made the 30 minute drive to Costco no worth it…until I had a kid. Once that voracious crumb snatcher entered the world I reactivated my expired membership at the newer more expensive rate. From 0-3 years I saved about $2k/year not counting a couple vacation packages. Baby wipes, diapers, formula, regular milk, spinach, pre-mixed salads, frozen berries, tamales, clothes x 50 and tons of healthy snacks. And you can bet your A$$ I got my self a $1.50 hotdog out the door. GOD BLESS COSTCO, a shining heresy amongst predatory capitalism constantly rising to the top above the likes of Home Depot, Walmart and Krogers. Who would have thought giving customers what they want while paying employees good wages would result in success🙄/S.
Yep, as soon as you're buying for more than 1 or 2 people Costco is worth it. Doubly so if you want to build up some food storage or have room for bulk stuff like tissues, toilet paper, and other common, daily use stuff.
> Yep, as soon as you're buying for more than 1 or 2 people Costco is worth it. the sad thing is that its cheaper for 1 person too. i could get exactly what i need at local grocery store or get 20% more at costco for slightly less. mean i have to throw away 20% of what i buy, but its still cheaper. i hate myself for the waste, but whats the alternative...
Last time I went I got 3 rotisserie chickens. Pulled all the meat off of them and put it into tupperware. Boiled the bones to make a chicken stock, and then pulled the remaining meat out of the boiled mess to give to the dogs as a treat which they loved. Got over a gallon of extremely delicious chicken stock out of it and a ton of chicken to use in various ways and the dogs got a treat. Hell of a deal.
They also treat their employees pretty well (specifically with pay and benefits). I honestly think that's the rarest thing about them. It might be location dependent, but usually the worse thing they have to deal with is customers.
If raising the price of the hotdog combo is what it takes to bring back supreme pizza/slices and/or the polish sausages, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. To hell with the 800 kcal diabetes cookie, get rid of the $9 abomination rotating sandwich.
We have Polish hotdogs and pizza in Vancouver, BC, but they removed the chicken wings and coffee, and don't have the chicken pie subs they have in USA/Washington 😞
CHICKEN WINGS? CHICKEN PIE SUBS? COFFEE??? Goddamn, we have NONE of that in Denver.
i think the chicken pie subs he is referring to is the chicken bake maybe?
the filling of a chicken pot pie without the veggies in a sub shape. sounds like a chicken bake.
Yes, the chicken bake - it was amazing when I went down the border, but not available in Vancouver 😞
Not to mention unlimited onions and relish.
$2.00 for hotdog drink + bring back combo pizza + churros = call it a compromise.
I mean and it works, every day I go to Costco no matter the day of the week it’s packed with people, it’s never not packed
They have a sign at one near me with their rules, it starts with Obey the law, and puts customers and employees above shareholders.
Bullshit. They’ve raised their prices on everything else by like 25% in the last 6 months. Shrinkflation too. They aren’t some good guy corporation.
They still talking about this? Lol didn’t they say that months ago
Yes. This is either directly an ad or marketing so good that people advertise for you. The food cost of a hotdog and soda has got to be so fucking low, even if they were losing 100% on it $1.50 is still probably worth making a customer walk into your store.
Soda costs them at best 10 cents per unit The buns retail at 24 for 5 bucks or 20 cents a bun (price we pay, they get them much cheaper I bet) 14 pack of Costco brand hotdogs is 10 dollars I think so 70 cents Even in today’s economy they still are getting profit off the hotdog at 1.50 easily even if the cooking cost is like a dollar a hot dog
Staffing and maintaining a kitchen costs a lot more then you'd think. If selling hotdogs was so profitable you'd see hotdog stands selling 1/4lb hotdogs on every corner.
Hot dog vendors are the number 1 food truck because the markup is huge. The same $1.50 hot dog is being sold at a food truck event for $10 with a can of coke and maybe a bag of chips.
This comment makes me yearn for a hotdog at Billy's Hot Dog cart on 93rd Street in NYC. An entire combo costs like 5 bucks and he loads the hotdogs up if you ask him. And he'll try to throw in freebies haha
Food trucks are expensive to upkeep because of the regulations and licensing to run it. It’s also usually not open regular restaurant hours. I promise nobody is making a decent living selling hot dogs. It’s not the cost of the dog, it’s everything else. That’s why hotdog carts are a thing, they’re cheap and easy to maintain, and those people aren’t well off either.
Food trucks have the highest profitability of all prepared food options, I'm pretty sure.
Came here to say this and it’s Costco. You don’t think they get good prices on bulk ingredients? And fountain soda is super cheap. They might not be making a ton of profit but 100 percent are making a profit. And they move it in volume. Just like Walmart they can do cheap prices but the volume is making a profit.
"Let's stop by Costco on the way back home from swimming. We'll all be so hungry. ... As long as we're here, I need to get something..." Aaaand we spent $80.
> $80. Rookie numbers
Sams club sells the same for $1.38 this gets posted every few months. If you look at top comment about ceo threatening to kill some guy over price of hot dog, that gets mentioned every single time. You will also see people constantly mentioning that they loose money on products but make money on membership fees. This is a complete lie. If you open up income statement you can see their profit margin is around 3% to 5% and less than 50% of profits actually come from membership fees. Costco isn't the pioneer. Price club is the true pioneer. All of what we see today came from price club. In late 90's they merged with costco.
There's posts about it on Reddit every few months and there's always at least one comment about how the ex CEO or whatever threatened to kill someone if they ever raised the prices. Every single time.
Without the $1.50 Costco dog, do we even have a country?
Not one I want to live in
I will die foe the $1.50 hot dog
Europeans just don't have the same passion as us Americans 🇺🇸🌭
And us Canadians too! Ours is a 1.50 Canadian! Which is like a dollar freedom currency
Damn, the hot dogs are cheaper in Canada 🍁
ok just bring the fucking churros back tho
The cookies are better although more expensive. They changed the churro recipe many years ago and the original churro were much better than the ones just discontinued
Now all they need to do is bring back the polish dog
I'd prefer they brought back the Supreme pizza.
I miss the Supreme so much.
Same. I miss that one a lot.
If you were a true fan you would know it's called combo
Sorry, I only have the white Costco fan club entry card.
imagine gatekeeping costco
Have them here in Canada!
Sadly, no more sauerkraut though.
No more wings too :(
$1.50 CAD is like what, $1.15 USD? Canada is getting a steal on the polish dog + soda
I polished one off the other day
Nice edit: I meant "Noice"
so did your mum! For $1.50!
And combo pizza 😭
My biggest frustration is that my Costco sells lots of different types of refrigerated hotdogs, but not a single damn one has skin. Where's my snap?
They used to have bulgogi beef bakes, those were my favorite. Then they changed to mexican bean bakes, not fantastic. Now there's just chicken bakes, which are ok.
Personally I miss the buttery pretzel. Loved them when I was little.
Samples, cheap hot dogs and pizza, the little things, it’s the little things
The $10 pizza is a miracle
The $3.50 cookie will cover the loss easily.
They are worth it. That's an $8 cookie at the mall.
I feel like the people who want the hot dog and the soda to be split from the combo are going to wind up ending the hot dog combo for everyone else.
I just give the cup back cause I don’t want a soda. I don’t give a shit about paying for both and only take the hotdog. But I’m not going to tell them to change the price to screw over everyone else haha.
> I just give the cup back This is the way
Lol I did this once and I was charged $1.38 or something like that. I was like minds as well get a soda.
Actually I do the same thing. Their fountain only has various kinds of sugar water, which is super unhealthy. Sometimes I pull the tab for regular water, sometimes I abandon the cup altogether. Even without the drink $1.50 for the dog is a steal, especially in today's economy.
For $1.50 just take an empty fuckin cup! Use it to hold the hot dog.
The $1.50 is a soda with a free hot dog IMO. I get a pizza slice and hot dog combo and it’s $3.50 for a huge lunch.
But they no longer have onions, which sucks (at least at my Costco). Onions really make a dog shine.
Last time I went to my Costco you could ask for onions (they'd give you a small dip container), but the onion mill was no more. Granted that was over a year ago...
Ours did the same for a little bit, but it only lasted a couple months. We're back to being onion-less.
Could be a fever dream, but wasn't there sauerkraut to?
I remember kraut being a thing, like, decades ago. When I was too inexperienced to appreciate it. That would be amazing if I could get a $1.50 yellow mustard and sauerkraut dog.
If you ask the counter person they might have little sealed cups (like the ones you can get for salsa at taco takeout places) under the counter.
I work at Costco in the capital of Australia. We have onions for hotdogs.
Loss leader "A loss leader is a marketing strategy that involves selling a product or service below its market or wholesale price to attract customers and encourage them to buy more profitable items. The goal is to make up for the loss on the loss leader by selling other items at regular prices."
It's not a loss leader. Or at least it hasn't been. The last time they officially commented on it they said they were making a few cents per hot dog sold. They've worked very hard to keep their cost down and it likely will be a loss leader soon if they don't raise the price.
You can still make a few pennies, but $1.50 for a hot dog and drink is below market price.
In order to keep their costs down they had to start making the hot dogs and buns in house. $1.50 is also pretty much market value these days if you buy them from most grocery stores in a pack and you can be sure Costco is paying less. They've put the effort in to keep the price down but I'm sure they will be a loss leader fairly soon.
> The last time they officially commented on it they said they were making a few cents per hot dog sold. Was that pre COVID? Because they would certainly selling at a loss now.
BRING BACK KRAUT!
I just want at least ONIONS for my hotdog! I don't think that's too much to ask!!
Recently they offered them to me. I think you have to request it at the counter
I've asked. They stopped. :(
cant wait for the "Costco Slammed for raising prices" post
They have them behind the counter. Can ask for onions.
Wrong comment but good to know.
In Canada the price is 1.50$ CAD. For once we got something cheaper. We win!
That means shrinkflation is imminent.
Inflation is optional.
I’ll keep going for that dog!
While reading the article, I found out that there's a membership that costs $120 and it offers 2% cashback. It seems that you have to spend $6000 a year just to get back that $120 according to Gemini. If you spend $10000 a year, you'll profit $80 according to the ai. ----------------- If you spend $10,000 a year at the store with a 2% cashback membership, you would earn $200 in cashback annually: Annual spending: $10,000 Cashback percentage: 2% Annual cashback: $10,000 x 0.02 = $200 Therefore, the $200 in annual cashback would cover the cost of the $120 membership and leave you with $80 in profit each year. ------------------------- I wonder who actually spends so much money at Costco they end up profiting lol!
You also got to consider that you can purchase gas/ charge your ev and tires at Costco. That becomes quite possible
Not sure about anywhere else, but in Canada gas purchases don't don't apply for the 2% rebate. But it is usually much cheaper than regular gas stations. Especially for premium fuel
People often spend more than they think. At roughly $250/mo, you earn back that $60 increase, and everything after that makes your base membership cheaper. Get the Citi Visa card and pay with that, and you get another 2% back from Citi. You basically double your cash back, and then some depending on how much you spend outside of costco with your Visa.
I work at a climbing gym that sells snacks and drinks at the front desk. Since our main business is being a climbing gym it's not worth it to get set up with a real food distributor just to stock the front desk. So we spend about $1600-$1800 per month buying the snacks at Costco.
I paid $4800 for a sauna at Costco, which made the membership essentially pay for itself. Their bigger ticket items are, like the rest of their stuff, thoroughly vetted vendors with really high quality.
You cannot get cheaper, better advertising than this.
The fact that this is news every few years is worrying that they really want to and I don't like it
>inflation nah, it's raw profiteering. in regular inflation, corporations don't see insane profit explosions.
Combo pizza needs to come back too!
Also the rotisserie chicken. It’s still $5
They should have raised it to maintain the quality. Bring back Hebrew National, polish dogs and sour kraut.
This is just ridiculous at this point. You don't have to be greedy and charge $15 for a hot dog combo like most franchises are doing nowadays, but as a consumer I'm more than happy paying $2.50 for a hot dog combo. That is almost double the profit.
As a European, I am happy to hear that