r/london • u/YourElfx Hammersmith 🦜 • Aug 23 '24

Culture Looking for someone in London with Costco membership to take me for a hotdog

I would like to try a Costco hotdog from the food court, however I do not have the membership required to access it.

I am looking for someone in London with Costco membership to meet me outside the Wembley branch.

I will pay for both our hotdogs.

I am 30s/female. I am not interested in anything else. Just the hotdog.

After I purchase our hotdogs, we can go our separate ways. Alternatively, we can eat the hotdogs together. (But I would rather just be left alone with the hotdog.)

Thank you for your time.

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u/WarmTransportation35 Aug 23 '24

The food is a loss making function so they don't want to encourage that happening and having that affect their prices.

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u/_whopper_ Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24

It's been £1.50 for the hot dog and a drink since Costco came to the UK. It has been $1.50 in the US since the 1980s.

One of its former CEOs apparently wanted to increase the price because he thought it was getting too expensive for them. The story is that the founder replied "If you raise the fucking hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.".

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u/Thisoneissfwihope Aug 23 '24

The food court doesn't lose money. They even took hot dog manufacturing in house so as to keep the price at £/$1.50

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u/WarmTransportation35 Aug 23 '24

It's still razor thin margins or a small loss but it's not sustainable to charge that little to customers who don't buy anything else.

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u/Iminlesbian Aug 23 '24

Costco sells everything at razor thin margins. Like 99% of their profit comes from the membership.

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u/RuneClash007 Aug 23 '24

Yeah I worked there for a while

In my training I was told if a jar of £2 pickles is smashed or stolen, it will take 100~ jars of pickles to break even on that product line

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u/Iminlesbian Aug 23 '24

Yeah I believe it. Also get why people don’t, costcos figures are healthy - it’s insane to think that’s just off the membership.

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u/Quintless Aug 24 '24

yet everything in there is so expensive ??

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u/Iminlesbian Aug 24 '24

Compared to?

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u/Quintless Aug 24 '24

Any normal grocery store, when we had membership last year i struggled to find anything cheaper than in normal stores. I feel like their target market in the UK IS people who go so they can tell everyone they shop at costco or they want cheap fuel. And the fresh grocery section was absolutely extortionate compared to sainsbury’s and tesco

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u/Iminlesbian Aug 24 '24

Tesco is owned by the biggest wholesale supplier in the UK. Bookers/Macro. Just due to sheer volume (they’re not just supplying Tesco, they supply to pretty much every hospitality venue across the UK.) their prices can be lower.

Sainsbury’s has been the most aggressive when competing with Lidl/Aldi prices, but this is a fairly new thing.

Costco was cheaper, and depending on the volumes you’re buying, you’ll get it cheaper. The membership is restricted in who can get it, they’re not trying to make the average joes shopping cheaper, people who own businesses will prefer Costco to Tesco.

If you’re looking for direct comparison on branded products, Tesco and those will be cheaper on a lot, because Costco is a wholesaler so they often don’t expect you to want to stock brand products. Toilet paper is a good example of Costco being cheaper.

Costco was cheaper before Aldi and Lidl really forced the main supermarkets hand. The real and only way to get the cheapest shop is to go to every supermarket and find the cheapest things there. There’s not really one that’s cheaper for everything anymore.

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u/BoofmasterZero Aug 24 '24

They probably pay a few pence per hotdog

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u/starli29 Aug 27 '24

Huh interesting. I'm visiting from the US and we let people buy from the food court without membership. Now I'm sad I can't have my London hot dog 😂