Costco is interesting because the people who run it understand the paradox of choice. Sure, Costco is crammed with items, but for any particular category there will be very limited choices (sometimes only one brand). This is unlike supermarkets, where there may be 30 different varieties of strawberry jam and 18 different kinds of bacon. So Costco offers the shopper (male or female) a seeming cornucopia while at the very same time minimizing choice stress. Moreover, if you buy the executive card (which used to be $100 per year - I've been out of the USA for a while now so the price may have gone up) you get a credit for everything you buy. Most years when I lived in California my membership cost me nothing and I'd even get a few dollars back at the year end. When you have a teenage son who's an ultra-runner and goes with you to the gym every day, you learn to appreciate Costco's prices - his teenage appetite would have bankrupted me had it not been for my local Costco.