What you wrote sounds intelligent but belies an ignorance of the business model.
Long ago in undergrad I took a retail marketing class and we did a field trip to Costco; the GM told us it was part of their policy to rearrange parts of the store occasionally so that you had to browse the entire place to check off your shopping list. This increases the likelihood that you stumble across new products. So it’s this combination of “best price/quality without decision fatigue” plus some impulse buying that works for them. The fact that they are figuring out the price/quality trade off for you up front probably also makes it easier to impulse buy with fewer regrets.
Ofcourse it's very convenient that their app doesnt show what aisle things belong to so that was a fun realization.
Maybe it depends on the GM.
Hope I do not jinx it :)
The sabbath was always meant for man and that makes a lot of people very angry because whatever ideological or religious lip service someone gives their behavior demonstrate they hate man, or more subtly, love mankind like dollars in their pocket, stripping humans of their humanity.
This mendacious attitude is also a major driver of enshitification.
The internet and executive social distancing has made a huge swath of people lose touch with how unique individuals are, so they treat humanity with the bigotry and coldness that the law of large numbers has lead them to, which is ultimately very mean.
This is an interesting take. Spending hours min-maxxing the "best" combination of product/price in every given category has always been peak consumerism as an identity to me. Subreddits filled with tens of thousands of posts and strongly held groupthink opinions about why knife brand x is the best option for you to open your amazon packages, or how much you need to try the new mechanical keyboard switch collaboration, deep dives on wirecutter, waiting for the right sale, etc.
I go to costco because I don't want to do any of that for my groceries and basic home needs. I need oil for my car this weekend, and beer and burgers to hang out after I'm done with it. I don't want to spend 10 hours reading about the best 5w30 oil (or should I get 0w20?), I want a high-quality option at a fair price.
> In contemporary consumer society, the purchase and the consumption of products have evolved beyond the mere satisfaction of basic human needs,[1] transforming into an activity that is not only economic but also cultural, social, and even identity-forming.
We all have to eat, we all have to wipe our asses, we (mostly) all need to change the oil in our cars.
I don’t really see the purpose in describing the purchase of necessities as an identity.
Parent Comment was trying to reject the personal identity of consumer while their words actively affirming their identity as a consumer in the marketplace. You can reject the personal identity of a consumer all you want, but businesses will still judge you by your actions (how much you spend).
Another thing on the top of my mind is oatmeal - I’m not a oatmeal connoisseur but I can’t taste the difference between the 5-10 types of oatmeal in the store, not that I’ve an active choice to try them. Do we need that much diversity in oatmeal choices?
And so on and so on.
Costco carries one or two options for a given thing, and are outright missing many things you might want. As nice as Costco is for buying things on a budget when you're going to use them up fully, I think it would be a bit of a challenge to make them your only grocery source. Doable as a sort of self-imposed challenge, no problem, there's certainly enough for that, but you'd be missing a lot of things, and/or wasting money on huge quantities of things you won't use. The quality is generally pretty decent (I may have more brand loyalty for "Kirkland" than almost any other brand) but not necessarily the most premium options. If you are the type to even consider the specialty shop in the first place you're more likely to be unsatisfied by Costco than a grocery store.
Then for all the niche stuff that I do truly care about, there's the specialty stores or really the farmer's market. That's where I'll indulge for the first press seasonal olive oils, all sorts of pluot/apriplums/plumpicots combinations, short shelf life wild berries, blueberry/orange/mint blossum honey and whatnot.
> Milk, eggs, flour, flowers, microfiber towels, batteries, salt and pepper
If you can walk out of Costco month after month with just those essentials, and never pick up any of the nice-looking and reasonably-priced goodies there, I think it's safe to say that you have the level of discipline required to be financially successful and not have to care about whether you're getting the best price per unit of whatever it is you're buying. :-)
There are still plenty of produce stands, bakeries, and butcher shops in the country. Most of what was driven out of business were small bodega-style corner stores.
They mostly exist now in a different form as gas station markets, or in dense urban areas like NYC, or some central business districts.
And note how the modern Democratic Party - the originators of that law back in 1936 - utterly failed to give a crap about the issue.
The government telling competitive buyers and sellers which kinds of price negotiation are legal and which are not is terrible economics because it attenuates price signals.
I'm thinking the faded-out enforcement was due to a certain 1980's President, and his administration's "Greed is God" ethos. A lot of protections for the little guy got dumped on his watch.
Enforcement of the RPA is overseen by the Federal Trade Commission, but cases have declined since the 1980s due to the complexity of the law and the requirement to prove intended damages. Juries in recent cases claiming RPA violations have not found the defendants guilty.
From the article on the Act -
"Enforcement of the RPA has declined since the 1980s. In 2022, FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya endorsed a revival of enforcing the RPA in order to curb price discrimination. In April 2024, sixteen members of Congress wrote to the FTC urging for a revival of the enforcement of the Act. In December 2024, the FTC sued liquor distributor Southern Glazer's under the Act, asserting that they charged small stores more than they charged large chains. On January 17, 2025, the closing days of the Biden Administration, the FTC filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo. In May 2025, The FTC voted to dismiss the PepsiCo suit but the suit against Southern Glazer's is proceeding."
It's a low bar but the Democratic party has given more of a crap about it than anyone else.