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Costco enrages me. Nearly everything about it is Discounters Theater.
Oh, the meat is cheaper? Yeah--because it comes in packages of 1 and 1/3 pounds. No recipe calls for 1 and 1/3 pounds. The implied promise of bulk prices is you can buy ten 1-pound packages at a discount, or at least one 10-pound package you can redivide yourself, but the reality is you end up expanding each evening's one-package recipe by 30%, which means the vast majority of people will eat larger portions and/or throw it away, thus saving no money.
You have to check my receipt as I walk out, even though I just ran a gauntlet of two employees per checkout lane, and there is no other way to access the exit (making for an awkward-as-hell line-cutting process if you try to leave without buying anything, by the way)? A.) Inspecting my purchased items is actually illegal, and Fry's Electronics got slapped down in court for it many years ago, and B.) you're just trying to make people feel like Costco is some super-guarded facility that only special members get to be a part of. You are not actually comparing the receipt to the basket, you're just slowing everyone down.
Dry goods are cheaper, as they've always been, but these loss leaders are meant to trick you into buying other items like produce, which I have compared extensively with my local grocery store, and the local store is always cheaper.
And yet, I have a membership, because we go through a ton of Fiji water and it's slightly cheaper there, and because they carry this one frozen gluten-free dessert that I can't get anywhere else locally. But it still infuriates me that I have to participate in their mostly-scam.
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