Coin Press - COSTCO profits from Fees

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COSTCO profits from Fees

Costco’s cavernous warehouses and legendary bargain bins hide an unusual business secret: the company makes surprisingly little money from the products rolling through its tills. Instead, the bulk of its earnings come from selling the right to shop there. Shoppers pay annual fees – US$65 for a basic membership or US$130 for an executive tier – and those dues power almost the entire enterprise. Costco’s chief executive has even remarked that the most important item the retailer sells isn’t a giant jar of mayonnaise but the membership card itself.

A Subscription Model in Disguise
While rival supermarkets mark up goods by 25 % to 50 %, Costco keeps its average merchandise markup at around 11 %, essentially passing most of the savings to customers. After wages and utilities are accounted for, the retailer retains only a fraction of its sales as profit. In its 2025 fiscal year the company generated roughly US$270 billion in net sales but just over US$5 billion in operating income before taxes. What makes the model work are those membership dues. More than 80 million paid memberships produced about US$5.3 billion in revenue in the year ending August 2025, a figure that was almost pure profit. Renewal rates remain extraordinarily high – above 92 % in the United States and nearly 90 % globally. In essence, the fee income covers Costco’s overhead, allowing it to sell goods at razor‑thin margins and still generate solid earnings.

Winning Loyalty Through Value
The club’s low prices and quality goods have cultivated a near‑cult following. Perks such as the US$1.50 hot dog and soda combo or the US$5 rotisserie chicken often cost the company money, yet they draw in shoppers who fill their carts with other items. Costco’s private‑label Kirkland Signature line also delivers savings of 15–20 % compared with national brands. Employees earn comparatively high wages and enjoy generous benefits, fostering a customer‑friendly culture. The result is a virtuous cycle: low prices attract members, high renewal rates give Costco scale, and scale enables even lower prices.

Adjusting the Membership Formula
As inflation and supply-chain challenges have pushed costs higher, Costco has nudged up its dues for the first time in years. Since September 2024 the basic fee has risen by about US$5 and the executive tier by US$10. Even so, members continue to renew at elevated rates. Management views the current dip in global renewal rates – down to around 89.8 % because of a surge in younger, digitally acquired members – as temporary. Fee income rose 14 % year on year in the fourth quarter of 2024 to US$1.72 billion, underscoring the resilience of the subscription model.

Costco has also tightened enforcement of its club rules. To prevent freeloading, store entrances now require members to scan their cards or smartphone QR codes. The company even stopped selling the famous food‑court hot dog combo to non‑members. In September 2025 a new, controversial policy granted executive members exclusive early shopping hours on weekdays and weekends. Although fewer than half of cardholders belong to this tier, they accounted for more than 74 % of net sales in the fourth quarter. The perk has added roughly 1 % to weekly U.S. sales and encouraged some members to upgrade.

Expansion and E‑Commerce
The warehouse chain isn’t standing still. Costco operated 914 warehouses worldwide at the end of August 2025 and plans to grow to around 944 by the end of fiscal 2026. Digital sales rose more than 13 % year on year, with online apparel and electronics leading the way. Though e‑commerce margins are slimmer and tariffs remain a concern, management believes its membership base and private‑label strategy provide a buffer against volatility. The Kirkland brand, which now generates more revenue than some famous apparel labels, continues to strengthen loyalty.

Risks and Outlook
Relying on recurring fees does carry risks. A prolonged economic slowdown could dampen renewals and spending, and younger customers acquired through promotions or online sign‑ups may prove less loyal. Expansion comes with costs that squeezed operating margins to around 2.9 % in mid‑2025. Nevertheless, the company’s net income climbed to US$8.1 billion in fiscal 2025. Executives argue that as long as Costco maintains its value proposition and treats employees well, members will keep paying for the privilege to shop. In the words of the company’s leader, culture is a business strategy, and the warehouse club will continue to prioritise the membership card over the shopping cart.

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Stargate project, Trump and the AI war...

In a dramatic return to the global political stage, former President Donald J. Trump, as the current 47th President of the United States of America, has unveiled his latest initiative, the so-called ‘Stargate Project,’ in a bid to cement the United States’ dominance in artificial intelligence and outpace China’s meteoric rise in the field. The newly announced programme, cloaked in patriotic rhetoric and ambitious targets, is already stirring intense debate over the future of technological competition between the world’s two largest economies.According to preliminary statements from Trump’s team, the Stargate Project will consolidate the efforts of leading American tech conglomerates, defence contractors, and research universities under a centralised framework. The former president, who has long championed American exceptionalism, claims this approach will provide the United States with a decisive advantage, enabling rapid breakthroughs in cutting-edge AI applications ranging from military strategy to commercial innovation.“America must remain the global leader in technology—no ifs, no buts,” Trump declared at a recent press conference. “China has been trying to surpass us in AI, but with this new project, we will make sure the future remains ours.”Details regarding funding and governance remain scarce, but early indications suggest the initiative will rely heavily on public-private partnerships, tax incentives for research and development, and collaboration with high-profile venture capital firms. Skeptics, however, warn that the endeavour could fan the flames of an increasingly militarised AI race, raising ethical concerns about surveillance, automation of warfare, and data privacy. Critics also question whether the initiative can deliver on its lofty promises, especially in the face of existing economic and geopolitical pressures.Yet for its supporters, the Stargate Project serves as a rallying cry for renewed American leadership and an antidote to worries over China’s technological ascendancy. Proponents argue that accelerating AI research is paramount if the United States wishes to preserve not just military supremacy, but also the economic and cultural influence that has typified its global role for decades.Whether this bold project will succeed—or if it will devolve into a symbolic gesture—remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the Stargate Project has already reignited debate about how best to safeguard America’s strategic future and maintain the balance of power in the fast-evolving arena of artificial intelligence.

Iran and the holy War risk

For now, Iran does not appear to be launching a formal holy war. But the question is no longer rhetorical. After the bombings that turned a long shadow conflict into an open regional war, religious language has moved from symbolic background noise toward the center of state messaging. The more important issue is not whether Tehran will suddenly summon the Muslim world into a single, borderless struggle. It is whether the Islamic Republic will fuse military retaliation, political succession, proxy activation and sacred rhetoric into a broader campaign that functions like a holy war without ever formally declaring one.The current crisis is already historic. Since the joint U.S.-Israeli attack of February 28, which killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and struck Iranian state and military targets, the conflict has spread across Israel, Lebanon, the Gulf and the energy corridors that underpin the global economy. Public death tolls inside Iran alone have climbed into the four figures. Even though international nuclear inspectors said early in the campaign that they had no indication several key nuclear installations had been hit or that radiation had spread beyond normal levels, later stages of the war clearly broadened toward oil storage, airports, command sites and urban infrastructure. This is no longer a contained deterrence exchange. It is a live contest over regime survival, regional order and strategic endurance.That is precisely why the phrase “holy war” must be handled with care. In January, influential voices inside Iran had already warned that any attack on the Supreme Leader would amount to a declaration of war against the wider Islamic world and could require a jihad decree. That language mattered then, and it matters even more now because the red line was crossed. Tehran can plausibly argue to its own hard-line base that the highest religious and political authority in the Islamic Republic was not merely challenged but assassinated. In ideological terms, that transforms retaliation from a policy choice into a sacred obligation. In political terms, it gives hard-liners a ready-made framework for widening the war.Yet rhetoric is not the same as doctrine, and doctrine is not the same as operational behavior. Iran’s response so far looks less like an uncontrolled call to universal religious uprising than a grim, state-directed campaign of calibrated punishment. Tehran has struck back with missiles, drones, maritime pressure and pressure on regional hosts of U.S. military power. It has also tried to impose costs on the world economy by turning the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz into instruments of leverage. This is not the behavior of a leadership abandoning strategy for blind zeal. It is the behavior of a regime trying to survive by making the war too costly, too wide and too economically dangerous for its enemies to sustain indefinitely.That distinction matters. A genuine, formal holy war would imply a sweeping call for open-ended religious mobilization across borders, one that subordinates ordinary state interests to an all-consuming theological struggle. Iran has not done that in any clear, universal sense. It has instead behaved as a revolutionary state that uses sacred language to reinforce legitimacy, discipline supporters and justify retaliation. That model predates the current crisis. The Islamic Republic has always blended theology, nationalism, martyrdom culture, anti-Western resistance and hard security logic. The bombings have intensified that blend, but they have not erased the regime’s instinct for calculation.The strongest evidence against an immediate full holy-war scenario is inside Iran itself. The system’s first imperative has not been global mobilization; it has been continuity. Even after decapitation strikes, the state moved to preserve command structures, delegate powers downward and push the Assembly of Experts toward selecting a successor. By March 8, that succession process had reportedly advanced to the point where a decision had been reached, even if the name had not yet been publicly revealed. That is a survival reflex. Regimes preparing for limitless religious war do not usually prioritize constitutional succession, elite cohesion and internal control. Regimes fighting for their lives do.Iran’s regional behavior also shows tension between ideological fury and strategic restraint. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s apology to Gulf neighbors was extraordinary, not because it ended the war, but because it exposed the conflict inside Tehran’s own response. On one side sits the logic of escalation: punish every state that hosts U.S. forces, widen the crisis, raise oil prices, frighten shipping markets and prove that the bombardment of Iran cannot remain geographically contained. On the other side sits the logic of isolation avoidance: do not drive every Arab state irreversibly into the opposing camp, do not convert every neighbor into an active launchpad for anti-Iran operations, and do not make regime survival impossible by fighting the entire region at once.This internal contradiction is one reason the phrase “holy war” can mislead. What is unfolding is more dangerous in practical terms and more limited in formal terms. Iran may never issue a clean, universal call for a civilizational war against all enemies of Islam, yet it can still encourage clerical sanction, mobilize militias, inspire cross-border attacks, bless cyber retaliation, empower covert cells and unleash proxy violence under a sacred frame. That would be a hybrid escalation: not a single global summons, but a diffuse religious legitimization of a long, dirty regional war. For civilians, ports, airports, desalination plants, shipping lanes and energy markets, the difference may feel almost academic.The role of Iran’s allied armed networks reinforces that point. Hezbollah has entered the conflict, but not from a position of unchallenged strength. Its intervention has deepened political strain in Lebanon and highlighted how even Iran’s most loyal partners are balancing solidarity against self-preservation. Other aligned groups face similar pressures. The so-called axis can still hurt Israel, U.S. assets and regional infrastructure, but it is not a frictionless machine awaiting one theological command to move in perfect unity. The more Tehran leans on proxies, the more it reveals that its preferred method remains layered coercion, not a single dramatic declaration of holy war.There is also a sectarian and geopolitical reality that limits the holy-war model. The Muslim world is not a single mobilizable bloc waiting for instructions from Tehran. Iran is a Shiite theocratic state with revolutionary ambitions, but its appeal across Sunni-majority states is uneven at best and sharply contested at worst. Gulf monarchies, already targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, are not natural participants in an Iranian-led sacred struggle. Many of them fear Tehran at least as much as they oppose the bombing campaign against it. That means Iran’s religious messaging may galvanize sympathizers, militants and ideological fellow travelers, but it is unlikely to unify the wider Islamic world behind one war banner.Still, dismissing the danger would be a grave mistake. The holy-war language matters because words can widen the menu of violence. Once a conflict is framed as sacred defense rather than national retaliation alone, thresholds can drop. Assassinations, sabotage, maritime attacks, strikes on civilian-linked infrastructure and violence by semi-deniable actors all become easier to justify. A state under bombardment, mourning its supreme leader and fighting for institutional survival may decide that conventional retaliation is not enough. If Tehran concludes that it cannot win symmetrically, it may authorize a looser, more ideological pattern of warfare stretching from the Gulf to the Mediterranean and beyond.The economic front is equally important. Iran understands that energy fear can be weaponized. Even limited disruption in the Strait of Hormuz sends shockwaves through insurance, shipping, aviation and inflation expectations worldwide. That leverage is politically valuable because it turns a military confrontation into a global pressure campaign. A formal holy war would demand maximal ideological mobilization. A survival war, by contrast, rewards selective disruption, ambiguity and controlled chaos. Tehran’s actions so far fit the second model more closely than the first.This is why the most serious answer to the headline question is not a simple yes or no. Iran is unlikely to launch a classic holy war in the simplistic sense of a formal, total religious call to arms that instantly unites the Muslim world under its banner. But it is already moving toward something more contemporary and, in some ways, more destabilizing: a war of survival wrapped in sacred legitimacy, regional coercion and asymmetric retaliation. The bombings have not merely invited revenge. They have strengthened the argument of those in Tehran who believe compromise invites death and that only resistance sanctified by faith can preserve the system.So the real risk is not that Iran suddenly abandons strategy for theology. The real risk is that strategy and theology fuse more tightly than before. If that fusion hardens, the war will not remain a sequence of missile exchanges and air raids. It will become a broader contest over succession, legitimacy, energy, maritime freedom, proxy warfare and the right to define resistance as a religious duty. In that environment, the phrase “holy war” may remain officially ambiguous, but its practical effects could become visible across the entire region.