<p>How does this sound -> a retail store like costco/sams club that has membership fees (ex: $50 a year) but wouldn’t sell in bulk like costco/sams club. Instead it would beat the avg market price on food/retail by around ~20%. The business would make the majority of its money off of membership fees. </p>
<p>It would kind of be like a fresh and easy or aldi but everything it sells would be cheaper.</p>
<p>You would need a lot of members to be profitable, which would take a few years.</p>
<p>You would probably need more people than you could reasonably expect to enroll given the challenges of geography. There’s a ton of Krogers, Wal-Marts, Targets(the ones with food), and HEB’s around here. If you got merely your share of customers within a given geographic area(which would be tough), your membership fees would not be all that much money. If you are assuming you will have brilliant supply chain management, innovative cost controls, pay your employees slave wages, no health care(might not be an option when Obamacare comes through), minimize some overhead costs(Sarbox, executive pay) by being tiny, and that suppliers will offer you the same prices they offer your giant competitors(LOL)…then yeah, it could work.</p>