[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

Costco doesn't enjoy the success that it does because of poor marketing strategy. That dog combo (also the pizza and those sandwiches dripping grease) may be unhealthy but they're huge, tasty, ridiculously cheap, and very convenient. Same goes for those roast chickens--maybe not as unhealthy as the items at the chow line windows but twice as big as the ones Sam's sells and for less than $5 we can get two meals out of one of the things. Obviously they can't be making money on the stuff but it IS a good way to attract and keep customers.

A related question...can anyone explain the rationale behind offering for example a $100 gift card for $75? I don't know if Costco does that here but up in Minnesota it was a Christmas season thing, mainly cards for restaurants. I don't know if they do that here or not. What would prevent a customer from buying up maybe ten of those things for his favorite restaurants and then enjoying 25% off all his meals at those restaurants for as long as the cards last? A hot dog or a chicken is one thing. $750 spent for $1,000 worth of meals is something else entirely.

Doubtful the chickens are twice as big as Sam's sells... unless they are actually small turkeys. We get at least two meals out of a Sam's rotisserie chicken too.

Does Costco sell packages of hot dogs? I thought it would be interesting to see how much their $1.50 hot dog would cost if I cooked it at home. I tried searching the costco.com website but could not find either hot dogs or buns.

At Sam's, purchasing a package of 1/4lb hot dogs and buns would work out to a cost of $1.30 per hot dog. Sam's and Costco both are losing money when they sell that for only $1.50. But, it gets you in the door and once you are there you'll find something else to buy too.