[babypuncher]

Costco does all these pro-consumer, pro-sustainability, and pro labor things while still undercutting everyone else on price. And they still make money hand over fist. It proves that every other company mistreating their livestock, filling their preserved goods with god-knows-what, or underpaying their staff is doing it out of pure profit motive rather than out of necessity to remain competitive.

[cjbprime]

Well, maybe -- Costco benefits from economies of scale and negotiation that don't exist for those smaller vendors. It doesn't cost everyone the same price to produce the same product.

[sandorscribbles]

Costco earns almost all of their profit from the membership fees and tries to keep all the product sales at break even pricing. Which makes their future precarious as the average member age is 50+, explaining the missing technology focus compared to say WalMart Labs or Amazon. They send Costco employees out to the farms to inspect every stage of the meat process, from raising the animals to the slaughter and packaging to ensure the quality. Disclosure: former IT employee at Costco HQ.

[brandonmenc]

> And they still make money hand over fist.

That's a lot easier to do when you only carry a fraction of the UPCs that say, Walmart does.

[darkpuma]

Surely most retailers only carry a fraction of the UPCs as Walmart does. Amazon beats Walmart, but who else? Wikipedia estimates 120,000 items per Walmart location and 35 million sold by Walmarts online. In comparison, McMaster-Carr has 570,000 products. Walmart is huge.

[PhantomGremlin]

The number of different SKUs is totally absurd.

As of right now my local supermarket (subsidiary of Kroger) has the following:

   Cheerios 12 oz
   Cheerios 18 oz family size
   Cheerios 20 oz giant size

I'm not talking about "honey nut", or "multi grain", or "cinnamon oat crunch", those three are just the basic Cheerios.

It's way beyond stupid. This idiocy is the fault of both the manufacturers and retailers.

[WrtCdEvrydy]

I wonder if there would be a market for cereals in plain plastic bags kinda like rice and beans...

Just the same bag as the inside of that cheerios box in 3oz increments with a plain label.

[stevehawk]

They do. But people never look down at the bottom shelf of the grocery story.

[jefftk]

My experience buying off-brand Cheerios is that the texture is very different: much crunchier. They're one of the few products where I don't just buy the cheap store brand version.