Originally Posted by
Nagasaki Joe
I just did a little online research and discovered that there are numerous Costco resellers around Japan and apparently "Stockmart" is one of them and "Minicos" may be one too. In other words, these shops buy directly from Costco and resell Costco products in their shops (and sometimes non-Costco products too), but Costco has no ownership stake in these resellers. Costco allows anyone to resell their products. Also, these resellers have no membership fees like Costco, so anyone can buy. The links below explain this.
https://soranews24.com/2022/04/14/it...k-alike-store/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kyoto/comme...led/?rdt=40059
There were a couple of shops in Kobe that used to sell what appeared to be Costco returns or end-of stock products at prices often below Costco's. They were in business for about 5 years or so, but both permently closed during Covid.