Costco allows purchases to members only. I do not understand why in the very beginning they did not enforce the purchase limit of each membership to something reasonable e.g. 2 big boxes (~70 rolls) per month.
On the flip side, they have been more expensive on quite a lot of things that the normal grocery store carries. Beware that just because Costco sells a giant pack of something doesn't necessarily mean it is cheaper.
Example? On a per unit/per weight basis, for equivalent quality, I have never once observed this.
Real example since I just did groceries so I still remember all the prices and still have my receipt from my last Costco run last week. Asparagus is $0.99/lb at the grocery store bundled with a rubber band; Costco had it for $3.68/lb but it came in a nicely sealed plastic bag with nutritional facts. $0.99 per bell pepper at the grocery store, pick from a pile; $9.59/6-pack (effectively $1.59/per) at Costco, also in a plastic bag with two of each color selected for you.
Peppers are a good example: nobody buys green peppers if they can avoid it. That’s why they sell sets with red/yellow/green.
(I hope “peppers” is the right word here. I have been somewhat confused by America’s use of pepper/pepperoni/paprika)
Also,
> This is particularly clear for products like soda where it's not that certain that the name brand is actually any better.
This hasn't been true in my experience. A lot of soda drinkers have very strong preferences not just between brand to brand (Coke vs. Pepsi) but even within the same brand (Mexican vs. US Coke). About the only time I'd buy any store brand soda would be if (a) I was serving it to people and didn't particularly care how much they enjoyed it or (b) if I was buying it for some non-drinking purpose.
So I think it's hard to say that there's a clear quality hierarchy with sodas. Rather, they drive strong consumer preference and two brands happen to be the best known and most widely distributed. This is more or less true of a lot of other products as well where there isn't a clear objective measure of quality, it just seems especially noticeable with sodas.
Incidentally, Russians drink Pepsi because the Pepsi company bartered distribution rights to the Soviet Union in exchange for the US distribution rights to Stolnichnaya vodka. After the Cold War ended they renegotiated and the Russians threw in a bunch of old naval ships and submarines—for scrap value, but still.
Once I started paying attention, I was startled how many things we buy at Costco are actually cheaper at the grocery store.
That's the problem with these systems. You either limit the good people from doing reasonable things or you expose yourself to bad people. There are some reasonable compromises in between but I wish people were a little less quick to judge an entire person's being from what's in their shopping cart.
It’s hard to imagine a resource distribution mechanism as harmful and inequitable as the free market.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Soviet-Union-Report-Socialism/dp...
You don't need to take my word. Check out the book. It's only $2.17, thanks to capitalism!
Edit: I do not wish to have an ideological argument. Despite all the conversation about coronavirus relief, many will still die preventable deaths. Much of this is for purely ideological reasons that have been addressed in my opinion more suitable ways in countries with different ideological heritage.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bi...
Quite an astounding achievement! If saving lives is your goal, Gates is the man you should help.
Gates gives back some of the money that he earned with dubious business practices. Other people are doing the real work.
Yes. For one thing, it mis-allocates things from where they are needed to where they aren't. (Because rationing assumes that everyone has an equal need when they never do.)
For example, during WW2 gas was rationed. This produced a nation of people who either had more gas than they needed, or didn't have enough. Naturally, this produced a black market to clumsily compensate, with the resulting crime.
Basically rations are an income transfer when they are used to distribute scarce products. It can result in bartering like you describe, yes, but it's not obvious that this negates the advantages. Does the bartering have to be forbidden for rationing to work? Maybe not?
For another example, let's say tp was being rationed. The amount each person gets is calculated to be the amount the average person uses.
One person uses 90% less tp than average, because he's got a bidet. Another uses 3x the average because he's got a bowel problem. Anyone who gets more than they need will feel no need to conserve it, while those who get less will treat each square as precious.
Is this equity? How does this make practical sense?
(Disallowing bartering won't help here, it'll just make things worse.)
If bartering was allowed, even bowel prob guy night have a shot.
There are variables in the model, the price of the rationed goods still reduces waste. Similarly the income distribution of the presumed society affects how many couldn't afford any 10x priced tp. Etc.
(In WW2, organized crime got involved in supplying gasoline due to rationing. Complete with drive-by shootings.)
I used to work for my uncle's coin-op business. I would often go to the wholesaler to purchase vending machine stock. Cases of cigarettes were insanely expensive ($2K each??) even at a wholesaler back in the late 1980s early 1990s.
We didn't renew our membership at either because our family of 3+1 small dog can't consume the enormous minimum quantities fast enough. (How are we supposed to consume 3 larger containers of ketchup, etc)
The could totally have said "normal memberships get one pack of TP a month, business memberships get 10 (or whatever the normal average is)".
Right now it’s a problem that swarms if people are acting like this.
People who stock up on necessities as a normal part of their lives would have been stocked up already and typically only buy these things to backfill from their current consumption. I don't know if this applies to toilet paper, but it's common in the LDS community to have at least 6 months' supply of nonperishable food at all times. Mormons don't typically buy 6 months of food at a time though, they just buy groceries at a normal rate to backfill their pantries via a FIFO rotation.
Of course, the rare occasions where someone would buy 6 months of something at a time--e.g. if they recently adopted a lifestyle and/or religion that encouraged this behavior--are easily absorbable by the supply chain assuming not everyone does it at once.