Costco gas is famously a loss leader, typically running 15 to 20 cents below surrounding stations.
More like they don’t have a need to make a profit and they run the station in a barebones manner on real estate that they get as part of the larger site. So it would be a loss leader for anyone else.
People spend money on gas, and sometimes one Costco has cheaper gas than another does.
The two Costcos that are nearest to me are listed at $3.65 and $3.79 right now. They're ~25 minutes apart. I think it would be fair to say that there's thousands of people living in-between where the difference in driving distance is irrelevant.
But if they decide that buying gas is a thing they're going to do today, and they can quickly compare the prices beforehand, then: They can use that data to help make an informed decision.
A 14-cent price delta isn't much, but if 11 gallons are purchased then it's enough to cover the price of a Costco hot dog and Coke (with refill). Not bad at all.
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Additionally: While Costco seemingly doesn't make (much) money on gas, that doesn't mean that they're always cheaper.
Suppose I were making a Costco trip today and I also need to buy gas. I'd be heading to the Costco that has gas for $3.65 because that one is much closer for me.
But I can get gas for $3.62 right now at the station down the block from my house. There's no line there (there's never a line there), there's no membership proof to futz around with, and it's super easy to get in and out of.
Since I have enough easy information to make an informed decision, then: I can tell that the smart move is to plan on skipping whatever line may be present at Costco's gas station and just buy gas down the block. This will save me both time and money.
But tomorrow? Who knows. The situation may be different, so I may make a different decision.
https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts
The data goes back even over 25 years if you play around with the query params (it started in June of 2000). E.g.
https://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch.gaschart?Country=USA&Crude=f&...
10% more expensive than 5 years ago doesn't seem like a "crisis".
Diesel seems like more of a problem: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASDESW
Does anyone else find this hyperbolic? Gas prices here in the US are up about 26% from their recent-past price -- it stayed in a very narrow range of about $3.20 for a year or two, and now is at $4.05.
A "FUEL CRISIS" is what you are seeing in Moscow right now. People lined up for miles and sometimes when you get to the front the delivery does not happen because the refinery got blown up. Or at least the 1970s oil crisis. A 26% bump in prices is a major annoyance, not a "crisis."
I would guess that the person who wrote this headline has some kind of a political agenda.
Did he describe it as a "fuel crisis" when gas prices rose from their previous ~2.80 baseline to the peak of $4.93 in June 2022, a 76% increase? Or was it not a crisis then for some reason?
While Wikipedia isn't always to be trusted (everyone knows that), the situation has been widely described as a crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Strait_of_Hormuz_crisis.
Just want to clear that up that the jargon is selected specifically from a general understanding and not one from a political skew!
I also wasn't tracking fuel prices back in 2022, otherwise I probably would have included similar dialog given the nature of what caused the prices to rise.
Costco has a single store in my country and it’s butter that they sell cheaply to get people in the door. But I doubt they are losing money on it.
Someone who's filling up for gas may or may not go inside the Costco store proper. But the gasoline isn't going to influence their buying habits. If they "just need gas" that's all they'll get.
Conversely, I cannot see how a $1.50 hot dog is doing anything but losing money. It's a classic candidate for loss leader.
Spending any amount of time to save 20.5 cents per day is not worth it to me.
jerlam•1d ago
lafond•1d ago
dominotw•22h ago
caminante•21h ago
phil21•16h ago
The only times I’ve seen it relatively empty were during bad storms.
That said, it’s not an hour wait. Around 20 minutes is average, but I rarely fill up there since I value my time much more than that.
jerlam•15h ago
ButlerianJihad•17h ago
jerlam•15h ago
Also most of the public chargers are networked, so you know when they are busy.
1970-01-01•46m ago
plandis•38m ago
Even when the lines are at capacity the Costco I go to (north of Seattle in Shoreline), I never wait more than like five minutes.
BeetleB•12m ago
For me, locally, there's a grocery store chain that also has gas stations. If you are a member (which is free), you get a discounted rate on gas - usually only 3-5 cents more per gallon than Costco. And if you do enough groceries in a 3 month period, you occasionally get an additional 10-20 cents off your next filling, which makes it cheaper than Costco.
They're also open a lot more hours than Costco gas. And their lines are shorter.
I don't see the point of going to Costco to get gas.