Wie Costco den japanischen Markt eroberte, wo Wal-Mart und andere westliche Einzelhändler scheiterten

The disney land example made it click for me.

Costco doesn’t make any sense here whatsoever. The products are more expensive, even in bulk, compared to what I can get from Gyomu or Summit or Tsuruya. On top of being more expensive, I have to pay a subscription fee to even get to shop there in the first place. The stores are way out of anywhere you’d want to go when shopping so you need a car, which adds to the expense of just going there. I get treated like a shoplifter every time I go there when they want to check your receipts at exit. The staff is always grumpy, service is dogshit compared to anything you can find here.

And yet, it succeeds. The only reasonable explanation I can find is that it’s treated like an adventure trip.