The secret sauce of costco is the insatiable demand and seemingly exponentially large customer base. You could realistically be waiting 10 mins for gas because

The secret sauce of costco is the insatiable demand and seemingly exponentially large customer base. You could realistically be waiting 10 mins for gas because people want the ~10% discount so bad. The lines inside to checkout are also huge, another 10-15 min process. Cafeteria lines are just as long. You can hardly find parking in the lot itself because its packed to the brim. Usually its easier to park in a neighboring business. The only other business I’ve seen with such a constant flow of customers is In n out. Sure its good to have healthy margin but when you are getting 10x the number of daily transactions as your nearest comparable business in the area, you are playing a different game from them entirely.