There are few companies that have such a passionate fan base as Costco.
With their low prices, generous return policy, and cheap food court, it’s no surprise that even the chain’s in-house brand, Kirkland Signature, has enough supporters to generate a popular clothing line.
But is the chain really as upstanding as fans would like to believe? One internet user decided to investigate—and came away pretty surprised.
Is Costco Evil?
In a video with over 117,000 likes, Facebook creator Ryan Kelly creates a fake interaction between himself and a Costco representative.
At the beginning, Kelly asks the Costco representative if they’ve been “doing anything evil.” The company’s response? “What? No! Are you telling me that being evil as a company is an option?”
From there, Kelly recounts the famous story from Costco’s history about the chain’s $1.50 hot dog and soda combo. As noted by Business Insider, when Costco’s founder was asked about the prospect of raising the combo’s price, he reportedly responded, “If you raise the [price of the] effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.”
Next, Kelly, in character as the Costco representative, notes that there is an affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles. While official efforts to fix the issue have “spent billions” and made the housing situation “worse,” according to Kelly, Costco is stepping in to build housing units on top of a new store in Los Angeles.
“So it’s gonna be affordable housing on top of an affordable store,” the Costco representative character says. “We vertically integrated affordability.”
Kelly then humorously contrasts this with Ticketmaster. The Ticketmaster character says, “Vertically integrating—for—the customer? I don’t get it.”
Is This True?
While it’s accurate that Costco is building affordable housing in Los Angeles, they’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.
As reported by Fox Business, building affordable housing units over a Costco location allows the chain to enter spaces that would otherwise be off-limits to them. Building a Costco-sized store in the middle of the city is near impossible given just how much space is required. However, by adding apartments, they can subsidize the project while allowing the store to integrate into its surrounding area.
Second, it should be noted that “affordable housing” is a relatively subjective term. In fact, if one looks at the data about the proposed housing development, only 184 of the 800 apartments are expected to be designated for low-income households.
Finally, as noted in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Costco benefits from this arrangement in other ways. For example, by adding housing units, they fall under a “2022 state law that fast-tracks housing projects on commercially zoned land if the development includes a certain percentage of affordable units.” This means the store can be built and operational more quickly than had they not included the units.
This isn’t even mentioning other benefits, such as reduced congestion at other stores, increased in-store foot traffic from residents of the building, and more.
Commenters Love The Idea
Regardless of the reason, commenters under the video were big fans of the idea of a Costco-run apartment building.
“If I lived on top of a Costco my diet would be 2/3 cheese pizza,” wrote one user.
“How many people who live there are just going to ‘duck downstairs’ to grab milk in their pjs,” joked another. “That Costco is going to be very interesting … Make it open 24hrs & let us watch the store via live stream.”
“Can we vote Costco for president? I mean…. a platform of affordable bulk and cheap hotdogs would not be the worst idea,” stated a third.
BroBible reached out to Costco via media relations contact form and Ryan Kelly via email.