Not literally, but the first Costco branch opened in Reykjavik, Iceland last week and people are. Jacked. Up.
No exaggeration, 1 in 8 Icelanders signed up for a membership before the doors even opened and Costco’s Iceland Facebook page has over 62k members (about 1/5th of the country’s entire population).
Are they just pumped about $1 hot dogs, or what?
Well it’s not just the dogs, it’s the toilet paper, the huge tubs of Pub Mix, the giant teddy bears… we could go on. But even those aren’t the whole story — it’s about sending a message.
Icelanders are jazzed because they finally have a choice in where they buy consumer goods, outside of the existing chain stores.
Why? Because 3 main grocery chains, Bónus, Krónan, and Nettó have been taking advantage of limited competition for far too long, inflating prices as much as 70% over US equivalents.
That means — brace yourselves — a regular old domestic beer will cost you about $10. Those are stadium prices, people!
And sure, shipping hot dogs to a remote island costs more
Iceland’s location smack dab in the middle of the Norwegian Sea doesn’t help with shipping and labor costs.
But, the fact that Costco is coming in hot, charging a dollar less per gallon of gas than any supplier on the island, is raising some eyebrows from price-fixing conspiracists.
And, even as Icelandic stores lower their prices to compete, Costco’s showing no mercy by going even lower.
As their managing director in Iceland puts it, they’re making good on their word that they’ll deliver the lowest prices in town.