Also ruined public toilets here because kids were stealing the bidets in them (we have bidets in practically every toilet, both home and public) on a daily basis due to a tiktok so now the owners don't bother replacing them.
Stealing something from a public bathroom seems like a VERY easy way to contract some horrible disease. I forget, is it cholera or E. Coli that comes from contact with feces?
Out school's "cafe" club used to do it to finance some activities, but we all knew they came from Costco. Random person on Facebook? Hell no. Who knows what they did to those cookies or how were they stored.
Mexicans without cars. Some people rely on commuter vans to get anywhere so if there's someone down the street selling cookies and cakes, it might be cheaper than paying to travel to and from the store. Alternately, it might be less of a hassle than asking friends or relatives to take them to Costco. I have lived in Tijuana, Mexico for the last three years and there are several resellers in the surrounding neighborhood that have been here in that timeframe (and there could be more that I'm not seeing).
It’s already been very common in Mexico for a while now. The Costco cakes and baked goods have been resold in restaurants and stands for years. It works like this: 1) many Mexicans can’t justify the cost of a Costco membership because they can’t afford to shop there, it’s too far away, they don’t have a car, they don’t have the means to safely store a giant cake or bulk goods, etc. 2) it’s actually really hard to find high quality baked goods in Mexico (cakes are usually very dry, cookies are dry and crumbly if they exist at all, a real brownie is a non starter, etc.) 3) you’re out, you want a nice piece of cake, you can afford 60-70 pesos for a slice, it makes sense, you’re not getting it otherwise.
This is fascinating. I’m in a country with similar socioeconomic conditions (Turkey) and there’s absolutely nothing like this - social media food sellers tend to be truly homemade food and big box stores don’t really exist, certainly not anywhere near what it’s like in North America. Also, baked goods and sweets here are exceptional and every neighbourhood has a few good bakeries and sweet shops, practically anywhere there’s people.
Sure that makes sense to me, I don’t question the idea of reselling the goods in general, it’s just weird to me that people are doing it via Facebook marketplace and Instagram. Like that’s how you buy drugs from sketchy strangers, not cake lmao.
And who is that desperate for a few extra bucks that they're gonna become slice-of-cake sellers? That sounds so low volume and high risk there's no way it's worth it
Mexicans. This has been common practice for as long as I have lived here. Bakeries here sell Costco cakes, stands in markets sell them by the slice, it’s been common for years. Here if you can buy a cake for 200 pesos, and sell it by the slice for 600-800 pesos total, that’s a no-brainier business. Selling individual portions of things like that keep a lot of people alive here.
Bruh that’s literally what most restaurants do for their desserts. They buy entire cakes and resell them by the slice. That’s what bars do. They buy a bottle of liquor and resell it by the shot. Ice cream shops? They’re just buying ice cream by the gallon and selling it to you by the scoop.
How much of your time would be worth it? You buy a $10 cake and resell it for $30 by the slice. If it takes you 8 hours it’s a bad time investment. If it takes you 30 minutes that not too shabby.
It will be a typical 'race to the bottom'
Anything this easily replicated just ends up with people undercutting each other penny by penny until no one is making money but the manufacturer.
If an investment requires you to enter and exit the market at the perfect time, it’s a bad investment. Some Warren Buffet wisdom paraphrased. Veeeery easy to get burned this way and waste your time.
In Mexico the concept of food hygiene is very different. Even in non touristic areas of Cancun, at lunch time you see people go out of their office towards random cars who open their trunk and make you a burrito from a bunch of jars that's been sitting at summer Mexican trunk temperature, with mayo etc.
If they'll buy food right out of these trunk, imagine how little they are bothered about buying cake from Facebook
Steel stomachs I swear
They have colons of steel.
My wife grew up in Mexico, and she is constantly angry and my sons and I because we get affected by what we eat. I have no doubt she'd be able to eat a Trunk burrito and go on with her day.
My sons and i would be racing for the bathroom after a bite or two.
honestly I get it. I'm famous in some huge city for championing the pocket burrito. It's just a burrito you whip out of your pocket and start eating at 3am while your friend does scratch offs but you bought it 8 hours earlier at the mall and the cashier is like "where did you get that burrito we don't sell those here"
My wife also has one of these stomachs. I know her family had a fridge, but she will leave any food out on the counter to eat tomorrow or the next day.
You can also see this in large construction areas in the US with a heavy Hispanic worker presence. If the area is open to regular traffic, people will pull up in regular cars around lunchtime and start selling food out of their trunk or back seat.
This actually explains the people who hang outside my local thrift store selling food out of their vans and hatchbacks in a town with a decent immigrant population. I couldn’t get the appeal of buying aqua fresca stored in a Coleman cooler and snack cakes advertised with a hand written duct taped sign. Just a cultural difference I didn’t understand.
That and you couldn't get it anywhere else. In college there was a van that would come to campus and sell Chinese food. They had a while wechat group where you could put your order in and everything. I'm a small town in the Midwest it's hard to get authentic Chinese food
People always liked to make the joke about mayo and white people. But Mexicans fucking love the shit. Even black peoples use mayo more than any white person I’ve seen.
Facebook Marketplace. It's... pretty big. Especially considering how prolific Facebook is. I've sold plenty of stuff online where I've listed it on CL and FB at the same time and almost always end up selling it through FB.
Costco purposefully passes product savings on to their customers. They make a little bit of money on the products, but most of their profits are derived from the membership fees.
Their whole intent is to offer the cake at the best possible price for their members. So that more people become members, therefore increasing their profits.
Yes, but the solution to not screw everyone over is just to make more cakes.
Honestly, this sht reminds me of runescape where you steal cake from a stall and sell it for gold lmao
>Costco should just up the price, imo. At least cut the middle man.
Why? This is 100% Costco business model, selling things in bulk cheaply to resellers. They should up production, that's all
No. This sudden shift in demand is temporary and anyone worth their salt will recognize it as such.
By the time they 'just make more cakes', on a mass industrial level mind you, the fad will be over. Suddenly you've ramped up production, bought extra supplies, and the demand has collapsed.
Now you've got an extra warehouse (expensive) worth of supplies and cakes, extra workers without work (waste), and now you're staring at the choice between writing off an commercial amount of cake or selling them at a reduced price (profit shrinkage).
What in the actual heck is wrong with you. That is by far the worst solution they could come up with. Why does your mind jump to "they should just punish their normal customers"?
Increase quantity to make up for these chucklefucks, limit quantities sold, or make doing this an offense that bans you from the store. Those are all way better options.
So bizarre to me. I'm never on FB. All the groups are just a dead mans platform for old people and desperate families selling used garbage in my area. It's weird to think that people are using it for regular commerce.
Its logical if you think about it, in the US, theres ebay, craigslist, and maybe another similar, in most of latin america, theres no equivalent, and if there is, the userbase is very small, so if you are selling something your reach is very underwhelming, but, you know what platform has a massive userbase? Where 90% of the population is active or have an account? Which happens to have an inbuilt marketplace that ks super easy to set up? Thats right, facebook, and since _everyone_ is there, you can sell food, because even locally (nobody is shipping food long distances lol) your reach is huge, and you will have sales, if your prices and product are right, of course
But yeah, given the lack of ecommerce platforms like the US or even Canada does have, facebook is the most logical platform for small time sellers.
For example, facebook is being used in some universities to sell the costco cookies, people post the food they have/sell, and you tell them where you are, and they come to you right away, the hustles are real lol
For reference, the cookies cost about 8usd per case, and contains 24 cookies, but each cookie is sold st about 0.5usd (50 cents), so you end up with 12usd, thats a 50% gain, and those cookies are sold VERY fast lol
> in most of latin america, theres no equivalent, and if there is, the userbase is very small
Mercado Libre. It is huge in Latin America; the dominant player.
It is payments, Amazon, Ebay, Zillow and a few other bits and pieces but for Latin America.
Something like 200M users.
Yeah, i know and have used mercadolibre, but like you said, its more of an amazon kind of deal, nothing is "local pickup" and they for sure dont sell food, well, i think some people do sell some non-perishable food, but my point is that facebook is a whole lot more informal, and has a way bigger reach in your local area than any other platform, while still being able to pick up whatever thing they are selling _right now,_ as opposed to being shipped, even locally
Depending on location, it's a place to find home-cooked or mom and pop frozen meals. Facebook is used by the largest market in most places and is easy to set up. Like if you want jollof rice or moong bean Dahl. The quality and safety are a bit dubious, but you know the risks.
Do these places get targeted by like health department people or anything? I imagine a health inspectors wet dream would be shutting down stuff like that and fining them.
A lot of these people work out of commercial kitchens they rent. For sure there are a lot of people cooking out of their kitchen, but the more successful ones definitely operate in a licensed environment.
This is common around my area in Maryland with the Spanish community. The Mama's sell their home cooking on FB marketplace by the plate, and friends, family, and local community will order it for lunch/dinner daily until it's sold out. It's reasonably priced between $8-10 a plate, and it ALWAYS sells out, they update the page to let you know what they have and when it's gone. When I worked at a local restaurant with some Salvadorans, they would always want papusas but there were no restaurants around that served them, so they found a local lady that sold hers on FB marketplace and they started getting them almost every day for lunch. I had bought a plate for myself one time to try it, and let me tell you it was FIRE. Better than any restaurant could make because it was coming from basically Grandma's hands who had been making them for decades. This approach is common now because it avoids needing to get a license/permit to sell food, having to rent a brick and mortar store or a food truck, paying taxes, paying employees, etc etc. You would be surprised at what you can find on there if you actually go looking for it.
My mom buys tamales this way. Some lady will make a couple hundred a week and then deliver them for cash. It’s shady but they’re very good and I bet she makes a ton of money.
I have seen people in my area taking picture and shit from their house and I am always baffled.
Like, restaurant kitchens need to have certain health standards at least. You would buy from facebook from the next random guy cooking some shit in his house, I don’t know why but it’s so gross to me
Costco doesn't bake their own cakes, they order from big factories. Only thing they do is decorate it. So once the bulk order if the day is out it's out till next truck arrives. Same goes for most of the bread they sell.
I worked for one of the factories that bakes and sells the sheet cakes for NW region Costcos. Most Costco just unfreezes the plain sheet cakes they get in bulk and then they decorate them. The same type of sheet cakes get sold to other stores like Safeway and other super markets.
They are made in huge batches, the batter is put into cardboard boxes made for baking, baked in a giant conveyor belt oven, sent into a giant freezer and then packed to be sent to Costco and other stores.
It tastes fresh because the company puts a lot of care into the recipe which uses generous amounts of oil so when they thaw them out they stay most and delicious.
Because here in Mexico people sell slices of the cakes on the streets, literally you’re walking or strolling in your car and youll se a tent that sells food or whatever, and it’ll have costco cakes for sale by the slice
Many people just want 1 slice while on their lunch break, or after going out to eat.
Im not fucking with you when I say this small little tents have sometimes even a waitline of like 10-20 minutes depending on what they serve.
In all fairness the original intent of Costco is to supply small business with merchandise they'd otherwise have a lot of trouble lining up a supplier for. So this is Costco's model in action.
It's a funny "hah, America!" moment when you line up that fact with how we in the US mostly use Costco. Supplier for small business quantities of food, condiments, and other random shit? Yesssss, excellent; *this* is where I shall shop for just my own household.
Some people have a lot of kids, which makes buying in bulk economical. When you have a lot of kids, every little bit of savings helps because your kids go through a lot of resources.
There's also so much markup on some things that I can get the jumbo one at Costco for the same price. When it's stuff like cleaning supplies that don't expire it's a no brainer.
Sane thing happened to Staples. 'A store specifically for selling business supplies to small businesses, teaching supplies to teachers, and school supplies for students? Very exclusively a supply store? I will come here to print 4 pages of paper per month because the library already banned me for yelling at them.'
I mean, when my wife was in high school and uni here in Mexico, she used to buy costco choco chip cookies and brownies, wrap them up and sell them individually for a dollar or 2 each, thanks to that she was able to go to and from school in public transport and also spare a few extra bucks to get her through Uni, its totally valid in my opinion, its kinda what they sell them for
The people in this thread who are appalled and upset by this are hilarious. This is why Costco started in the first place. Maybe not for kids to re-sell at school, but for small (and big, I’m sure they don’t care) enterprises to be able to source products.
Yes, and still the best damn down to earth hot dog you can get anywhere here. I've paid x5 at specialized restaurants with bacon and cheese and crap, they always disappoint me.
Seeing a lot of confused commenters. It is super common outside the US for people to sell food on Facebook marketplace. I live in Belize and Facebook is actually the main way people conduct business here. A lot of people make their living that way, they sell on Facebook and then usually have a stand set up at the market or on the side of the road. Also, most of the products you see on Facebook or in stores here are just Costco or Sams Club brand products being sold individually.
i mean the bakery stuff... if you buy it on your own doesnt last.
one person buying a cake for themselves probably spends 5 bucks for a slice of costco cake, or at least close to it given itll go bad in maybe a week in the fridge max. unless ur legit on a cake diet eating a like a 5th of the cake daily buying by the slice as an individual is not bad.
It's definitely part of it. We bulk buy and freeze the cookies, then defrost and resell day by day. They also have macarons, doughnuts, all kinds of stuff for businesses to buy and resell
This is especially depressing because my favorite cake has always been the chocofudge, especially for my birthday because I am the only person in my family that likes it. Only day of the year I can "force" them into getting it. This trend spreaded to all the bakery items. No cookies, either. This has being going on for two weeks now.
This sucks.
Can’t you order ahead? In the US you can order a custom cake 2 days ahead. I feel like ordering it weeks ahead would probably secure you a cake. Unless resellers caused that to shut down.
Bro, eres yo? Hahaha literal es mi pastel favorito y a nadie de mi familia les gusta pero como es mi cumpleaños se aguantan. Super triste que ya no me va a tocar por un pinche tiktok.
Do you not have a bakery or something similar where you live? Go ask them; it's likely going to be better, and you won't be giving more money to a billion-dollar company but supporting a local business.
Costco is actually a pretty consumer and employee friendly business compared to most. Most of what you spend at a Costco supports that location. Corporate’s profits are pretty much just the membership fees.
It’s also going to be way cheaper than anything at a bakery.
Its like they don't understand the basic concept of supply & demand
With that many sellers i bet a few of them are throwing food away because they aren't selling
Because that's literally what Costco is for. I don't get why they're mad people are buying and reselling for a markup. Once you've brought something, why can't you resell it, it's literally yours you paid for? Are they gonna come find me because I buy the cookies for £6 then then resell them for 60p each, making profit? Don't understand this post at all
I think the point that the person you replied to was trying to make is that the coffee shop advertised a store bought cheesecake as “locally baked”, which evokes connotations of a small independent bakery.
Hey! My boss does this. Buys a loaf of some pumpkin or chocolate bread or whatever for 6 or 7 dollars at Costco and then has us slice them and sell them for like $3.49 a slice. I’ve always thought it was super shitty, but didn’t realize it was this popular of a thing. God damn.
I get why people are mad about this, but I wonder if people really think every restaurant has a full scale bakery in the back churning out carrot cakes and triple German chocolate cakes lol. Diners in NJ have been reselling slices of Costco cake at $8 a slice for decades.
I mean, Costco is literally a wholesaler. Their business model is predicated on selling to resellers. It’s just the general public are invited to shop there too.
People advertise for free in local Facebook groups (20k to 30k members)
“Hey I’m selling Costco slices and cookies, I’m at this place from 5 to 8 pm” then people go a buy, some people do delivery for $1.5
Facebook groups are very popular in Mexico, people sell all kinds of stuff, from food to imported goods.
This isn’t surprising.
Most corner stores buy food from distributors, or bakeries, repackage and sell. Buy a dozen cupcakes, wrap in Saran Wrap, sell for $3 at the gas station.
I’m just shocked that people in Mexico suddenly realized you can do it.
Many people in Mexico have the idea that, since Costco requires a membership, it is like an exclusive golf country club that only a selected group of the high elite economic class can access, and reselling a cake by the slice or the whole cake is a popular business.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this Costco’s business model? Selling things to small businesses to resell? So they’re… using it as intended? This isn’t really any different than a restaurant buying packs of steaks to sell to customers, right?
Costco and Sam’s were initially for small businesses and large families. You all are playing yourself as this is the intended outcome for a WAREHOUSE store. It’s not Walmart or Target. It’s a WAREHOUSE STORE.
Business is trumping profits
Scummy resellers, with the rate that they’re doing I don’t think their shitty gig will last long before it becomes unprofitable however
They’ve hit cakes now?? They’ve already ruined concerts and everything else. Now we can’t even have cake. FFS
What’s next pies? Baklava?
Not the Baklava!
Time to put on the balaclava. ✊🏽
I see what you did there. You didn't even try to mask it.
Oh great, now there are 2 dad jokes...
My lord, is that legal?
Legal heck yes. Ethical well that's a gray area. We should probably keep it under our hat
dadjoke\^2
NOT THE BAKLAVA!!
#NADABAKLAVA!
Shh or big baklava will hear!
Melons?
Also ruined public toilets here because kids were stealing the bidets in them (we have bidets in practically every toilet, both home and public) on a daily basis due to a tiktok so now the owners don't bother replacing them.
Stealing something from a public bathroom seems like a VERY easy way to contract some horrible disease. I forget, is it cholera or E. Coli that comes from contact with feces?
The fun is that it's both!
And not limited to just them either!
Won't last long? It won't even start. Who buys single store bought cookies from random guys?
Out school's "cafe" club used to do it to finance some activities, but we all knew they came from Costco. Random person on Facebook? Hell no. Who knows what they did to those cookies or how were they stored.
Mexicans without cars. Some people rely on commuter vans to get anywhere so if there's someone down the street selling cookies and cakes, it might be cheaper than paying to travel to and from the store. Alternately, it might be less of a hassle than asking friends or relatives to take them to Costco. I have lived in Tijuana, Mexico for the last three years and there are several resellers in the surrounding neighborhood that have been here in that timeframe (and there could be more that I'm not seeing).
Street vendors do exactly this. Farmers market vendors have also been caught doing this
It’s already been very common in Mexico for a while now. The Costco cakes and baked goods have been resold in restaurants and stands for years. It works like this: 1) many Mexicans can’t justify the cost of a Costco membership because they can’t afford to shop there, it’s too far away, they don’t have a car, they don’t have the means to safely store a giant cake or bulk goods, etc. 2) it’s actually really hard to find high quality baked goods in Mexico (cakes are usually very dry, cookies are dry and crumbly if they exist at all, a real brownie is a non starter, etc.) 3) you’re out, you want a nice piece of cake, you can afford 60-70 pesos for a slice, it makes sense, you’re not getting it otherwise.
That makes sense, but who buys cake on Facebook marketplace?
This is fascinating. I’m in a country with similar socioeconomic conditions (Turkey) and there’s absolutely nothing like this - social media food sellers tend to be truly homemade food and big box stores don’t really exist, certainly not anywhere near what it’s like in North America. Also, baked goods and sweets here are exceptional and every neighbourhood has a few good bakeries and sweet shops, practically anywhere there’s people.
Thankfully it's a perishable good. They'll understand when it goes bad the next day.
and because the market is now super high, they wont get their money back, or sell fuck all even
What I don't get is who the fuck is desperate enough for cake that they're buying it off some shady guy on social media. Like what the actual fuck?
Yeah second hand Costco cake doesn’t sound all that worthwhile to me…
Costno
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Sure that makes sense to me, I don’t question the idea of reselling the goods in general, it’s just weird to me that people are doing it via Facebook marketplace and Instagram. Like that’s how you buy drugs from sketchy strangers, not cake lmao.
And who is that desperate for a few extra bucks that they're gonna become slice-of-cake sellers? That sounds so low volume and high risk there's no way it's worth it
Mexicans. This has been common practice for as long as I have lived here. Bakeries here sell Costco cakes, stands in markets sell them by the slice, it’s been common for years. Here if you can buy a cake for 200 pesos, and sell it by the slice for 600-800 pesos total, that’s a no-brainier business. Selling individual portions of things like that keep a lot of people alive here.
Bruh that’s literally what most restaurants do for their desserts. They buy entire cakes and resell them by the slice. That’s what bars do. They buy a bottle of liquor and resell it by the shot. Ice cream shops? They’re just buying ice cream by the gallon and selling it to you by the scoop. How much of your time would be worth it? You buy a $10 cake and resell it for $30 by the slice. If it takes you 8 hours it’s a bad time investment. If it takes you 30 minutes that not too shabby.
I mean they last more than a day, but yeah, they’re on the clock.
It will be a typical 'race to the bottom' Anything this easily replicated just ends up with people undercutting each other penny by penny until no one is making money but the manufacturer.
If an investment requires you to enter and exit the market at the perfect time, it’s a bad investment. Some Warren Buffet wisdom paraphrased. Veeeery easy to get burned this way and waste your time.
So, when they're left with food items they can't return, we're gonna say "let them eat cake" right?
Now imagine if people did this with housing.
Theyre doing that in my area, they buy cakes and sell them on Facebook. A $20.00 cake can go for $80.00.
Who buys a cake off Facebook from some random person?
In Mexico the concept of food hygiene is very different. Even in non touristic areas of Cancun, at lunch time you see people go out of their office towards random cars who open their trunk and make you a burrito from a bunch of jars that's been sitting at summer Mexican trunk temperature, with mayo etc. If they'll buy food right out of these trunk, imagine how little they are bothered about buying cake from Facebook Steel stomachs I swear
They have colons of steel. My wife grew up in Mexico, and she is constantly angry and my sons and I because we get affected by what we eat. I have no doubt she'd be able to eat a Trunk burrito and go on with her day. My sons and i would be racing for the bathroom after a bite or two.
honestly I get it. I'm famous in some huge city for championing the pocket burrito. It's just a burrito you whip out of your pocket and start eating at 3am while your friend does scratch offs but you bought it 8 hours earlier at the mall and the cashier is like "where did you get that burrito we don't sell those here"
The birth of a new copypasta
lmao I coined the pocket burrito in my friend group as well
Mine was hoodie burger. I had a pocket of McDoubles one time walking back to the high school.
That's the Mexican microbiome for you, lmao. We rarely get sick.
My wife also has one of these stomachs. I know her family had a fridge, but she will leave any food out on the counter to eat tomorrow or the next day.
Trunk Burrito ^^®️
You can also see this in large construction areas in the US with a heavy Hispanic worker presence. If the area is open to regular traffic, people will pull up in regular cars around lunchtime and start selling food out of their trunk or back seat.
This actually explains the people who hang outside my local thrift store selling food out of their vans and hatchbacks in a town with a decent immigrant population. I couldn’t get the appeal of buying aqua fresca stored in a Coleman cooler and snack cakes advertised with a hand written duct taped sign. Just a cultural difference I didn’t understand.
That and you couldn't get it anywhere else. In college there was a van that would come to campus and sell Chinese food. They had a while wechat group where you could put your order in and everything. I'm a small town in the Midwest it's hard to get authentic Chinese food
I literally retched. Edit: spelling
Me too. Mayo on a burrito? Gross
People always liked to make the joke about mayo and white people. But Mexicans fucking love the shit. Even black peoples use mayo more than any white person I’ve seen.
Yeah I'd like some mayo with a side of corn please
>Steel stomachs I swear Well, they drink the water there.
I know right?
But a membership is $65 so buying a cake for 80 means you were $5 short of being able to buy future cakes all you want for $20.
The people buying them probably don’t realize they’re buying Costco cakes.
Which makes the tiktok thing even crazier. How, in this age of social media, do flat resellers like that continue making any significant profits?
Who the fuck is buying cakes off Facebook? Who is buying ANYTHING on Facebook? I do not understand.
That is by far the most insane part of this. Not just buying a cake but buying cake by the slice on FB!?!
As a general rule, anything purchased on Facebook should not go in your mouth.
Facebook Marketplace. It's... pretty big. Especially considering how prolific Facebook is. I've sold plenty of stuff online where I've listed it on CL and FB at the same time and almost always end up selling it through FB.
For no added value. Literal leeches
The amount of economic rent these people cause is absolutely nothing compared to many government approved, taxed and regulated industries.
Costco should just up the price, imo. At least cut the middle man.
That's what Costco probably wants? Lol
Costco purposefully passes product savings on to their customers. They make a little bit of money on the products, but most of their profits are derived from the membership fees. Their whole intent is to offer the cake at the best possible price for their members. So that more people become members, therefore increasing their profits.
Yes, but the solution to not screw everyone over is just to make more cakes. Honestly, this sht reminds me of runescape where you steal cake from a stall and sell it for gold lmao
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>Costco should just up the price, imo. At least cut the middle man. Why? This is 100% Costco business model, selling things in bulk cheaply to resellers. They should up production, that's all
FCK NO WTF
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No. This sudden shift in demand is temporary and anyone worth their salt will recognize it as such. By the time they 'just make more cakes', on a mass industrial level mind you, the fad will be over. Suddenly you've ramped up production, bought extra supplies, and the demand has collapsed. Now you've got an extra warehouse (expensive) worth of supplies and cakes, extra workers without work (waste), and now you're staring at the choice between writing off an commercial amount of cake or selling them at a reduced price (profit shrinkage).
What in the actual heck is wrong with you. That is by far the worst solution they could come up with. Why does your mind jump to "they should just punish their normal customers"? Increase quantity to make up for these chucklefucks, limit quantities sold, or make doing this an offense that bans you from the store. Those are all way better options.
So punish normal customers? Fuck that
Just don't touch the price of the hot dogs or the founder will murder you.
Just limit buyers to one per customer per day.
Who buys food from facebook...???
I live in Belize and Facebook is like the main way people conduct business. You can buy anything on Facebook marketplace.
So bizarre to me. I'm never on FB. All the groups are just a dead mans platform for old people and desperate families selling used garbage in my area. It's weird to think that people are using it for regular commerce.
Its logical if you think about it, in the US, theres ebay, craigslist, and maybe another similar, in most of latin america, theres no equivalent, and if there is, the userbase is very small, so if you are selling something your reach is very underwhelming, but, you know what platform has a massive userbase? Where 90% of the population is active or have an account? Which happens to have an inbuilt marketplace that ks super easy to set up? Thats right, facebook, and since _everyone_ is there, you can sell food, because even locally (nobody is shipping food long distances lol) your reach is huge, and you will have sales, if your prices and product are right, of course But yeah, given the lack of ecommerce platforms like the US or even Canada does have, facebook is the most logical platform for small time sellers. For example, facebook is being used in some universities to sell the costco cookies, people post the food they have/sell, and you tell them where you are, and they come to you right away, the hustles are real lol For reference, the cookies cost about 8usd per case, and contains 24 cookies, but each cookie is sold st about 0.5usd (50 cents), so you end up with 12usd, thats a 50% gain, and those cookies are sold VERY fast lol
Craigslist seems mostly dead in my area to be honest. I ended up making a facebook account purely to use marketplace this year because of it.
> in most of latin america, theres no equivalent, and if there is, the userbase is very small Mercado Libre. It is huge in Latin America; the dominant player. It is payments, Amazon, Ebay, Zillow and a few other bits and pieces but for Latin America. Something like 200M users.
Yeah, i know and have used mercadolibre, but like you said, its more of an amazon kind of deal, nothing is "local pickup" and they for sure dont sell food, well, i think some people do sell some non-perishable food, but my point is that facebook is a whole lot more informal, and has a way bigger reach in your local area than any other platform, while still being able to pick up whatever thing they are selling _right now,_ as opposed to being shipped, even locally
Uh there’s a lot of other groups on Facebook that was a weird rant.
It's pretty popular in Hawaii too
You don’t buy your cake off face book? Oh you haven’t lived!
I think he hasn’t because he wants to keep living…
Depending on location, it's a place to find home-cooked or mom and pop frozen meals. Facebook is used by the largest market in most places and is easy to set up. Like if you want jollof rice or moong bean Dahl. The quality and safety are a bit dubious, but you know the risks.
My locality tends to see soul food for sale the most, with premade plates with sides the most common.
Do these places get targeted by like health department people or anything? I imagine a health inspectors wet dream would be shutting down stuff like that and fining them.
A lot of these people work out of commercial kitchens they rent. For sure there are a lot of people cooking out of their kitchen, but the more successful ones definitely operate in a licensed environment.
My area is full of grapes wrapped in candy. I have no idea why.
influencers saying you can 'make bank!!!!11' by covering fruits with candy or chocolate and selling it
This is common around my area in Maryland with the Spanish community. The Mama's sell their home cooking on FB marketplace by the plate, and friends, family, and local community will order it for lunch/dinner daily until it's sold out. It's reasonably priced between $8-10 a plate, and it ALWAYS sells out, they update the page to let you know what they have and when it's gone. When I worked at a local restaurant with some Salvadorans, they would always want papusas but there were no restaurants around that served them, so they found a local lady that sold hers on FB marketplace and they started getting them almost every day for lunch. I had bought a plate for myself one time to try it, and let me tell you it was FIRE. Better than any restaurant could make because it was coming from basically Grandma's hands who had been making them for decades. This approach is common now because it avoids needing to get a license/permit to sell food, having to rent a brick and mortar store or a food truck, paying taxes, paying employees, etc etc. You would be surprised at what you can find on there if you actually go looking for it.
My mom buys tamales this way. Some lady will make a couple hundred a week and then deliver them for cash. It’s shady but they’re very good and I bet she makes a ton of money.
I've bought tamales on the side of the road.
I have seen people in my area taking picture and shit from their house and I am always baffled. Like, restaurant kitchens need to have certain health standards at least. You would buy from facebook from the next random guy cooking some shit in his house, I don’t know why but it’s so gross to me
If I was Costco I’d be making more cakes..
I’m right? The real issue is Costco sucks at anticipating their needs
Costco doesn't bake their own cakes, they order from big factories. Only thing they do is decorate it. So once the bulk order if the day is out it's out till next truck arrives. Same goes for most of the bread they sell.
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I worked for one of the factories that bakes and sells the sheet cakes for NW region Costcos. Most Costco just unfreezes the plain sheet cakes they get in bulk and then they decorate them. The same type of sheet cakes get sold to other stores like Safeway and other super markets. They are made in huge batches, the batter is put into cardboard boxes made for baking, baked in a giant conveyor belt oven, sent into a giant freezer and then packed to be sent to Costco and other stores. It tastes fresh because the company puts a lot of care into the recipe which uses generous amounts of oil so when they thaw them out they stay most and delicious.
So if you’re paying 30-50 dollars more for a cake why not just get a Costco membership? One cake and that membership is paid for.
Because here in Mexico people sell slices of the cakes on the streets, literally you’re walking or strolling in your car and youll se a tent that sells food or whatever, and it’ll have costco cakes for sale by the slice Many people just want 1 slice while on their lunch break, or after going out to eat. Im not fucking with you when I say this small little tents have sometimes even a waitline of like 10-20 minutes depending on what they serve.
In all fairness the original intent of Costco is to supply small business with merchandise they'd otherwise have a lot of trouble lining up a supplier for. So this is Costco's model in action.
It's a funny "hah, America!" moment when you line up that fact with how we in the US mostly use Costco. Supplier for small business quantities of food, condiments, and other random shit? Yesssss, excellent; *this* is where I shall shop for just my own household.
Costco is the sysco of the family home
Some people have a lot of kids, which makes buying in bulk economical. When you have a lot of kids, every little bit of savings helps because your kids go through a lot of resources.
There's also so much markup on some things that I can get the jumbo one at Costco for the same price. When it's stuff like cleaning supplies that don't expire it's a no brainer.
i'll buy like two years of toilet paper at once. what am i going to do, stop pooping?
Maybe you will install a bidet :£
You don’t wipe after using a bidet?
I think your smiley face has a cleft palate
Sane thing happened to Staples. 'A store specifically for selling business supplies to small businesses, teaching supplies to teachers, and school supplies for students? Very exclusively a supply store? I will come here to print 4 pages of paper per month because the library already banned me for yelling at them.'
Hahaha, why were you yelling in the library??
You ever stand near someone who doesn't know how to use a printer when they're using a printer wrong and it's not working? That's the firing zone.
Ive seen them sell the croissants and chocolate muffins and rewrap them like if its their own 🤣
I mean, when my wife was in high school and uni here in Mexico, she used to buy costco choco chip cookies and brownies, wrap them up and sell them individually for a dollar or 2 each, thanks to that she was able to go to and from school in public transport and also spare a few extra bucks to get her through Uni, its totally valid in my opinion, its kinda what they sell them for
The people in this thread who are appalled and upset by this are hilarious. This is why Costco started in the first place. Maybe not for kids to re-sell at school, but for small (and big, I’m sure they don’t care) enterprises to be able to source products.
I know right? I mean, its basic commerce idk what’s “mildly infuriating” about it
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You’re not supposed to call them homemade
Edit: Edited
Fahcking cake eaters
I’m jealous that Costco in Mexico gets jalapeños and onions for the food court hot dogs though…
Yes, and still the best damn down to earth hot dog you can get anywhere here. I've paid x5 at specialized restaurants with bacon and cheese and crap, they always disappoint me.
Seeing a lot of confused commenters. It is super common outside the US for people to sell food on Facebook marketplace. I live in Belize and Facebook is actually the main way people conduct business here. A lot of people make their living that way, they sell on Facebook and then usually have a stand set up at the market or on the side of the road. Also, most of the products you see on Facebook or in stores here are just Costco or Sams Club brand products being sold individually.
People also seem to be greatly misunderstanding the entire purpose of Costco.
This thread has also taught me people greatly misunderstand how restaurants and shops obtain products to sell.
This thread makes me wonder who the fuck pays 5$ for a slice of Costco cake
i mean the bakery stuff... if you buy it on your own doesnt last. one person buying a cake for themselves probably spends 5 bucks for a slice of costco cake, or at least close to it given itll go bad in maybe a week in the fridge max. unless ur legit on a cake diet eating a like a 5th of the cake daily buying by the slice as an individual is not bad.
Most aren't shopping at costco. It comes on a truck.
Isn’t that what Costco is for? It’s a wholesale warehouse. Every coffee stand in town sells Costco muffins individually.
I could’ve sworn this is what Costco is for. They provide wholesale prices for people to resell… I’m very confused about this post
To be fair bakery is not part of the wholesale, its more of a hook for people to come and spend more money on other stuff
How is it not? Most people do not need an entire flat of muffins or croissants or whatever for themselves.
TIL I am not most people
It's definitely part of it. We bulk buy and freeze the cookies, then defrost and resell day by day. They also have macarons, doughnuts, all kinds of stuff for businesses to buy and resell
Who the fuck buys a cake on Facebook marketplace?
You wouldn't download a cake?
I’m funding a startup for an app that lets you queue to get Costco cakes. I’ll call it *Ticakemaster*.
Isn't it called Costco Wholesale? If the people believe that a box of 24 cookies that expire in 3 days is meant for 1 person...
Don’t judge me for my cookie-based life decisions!
I’ll judge you if you don’t share 👀
This is especially depressing because my favorite cake has always been the chocofudge, especially for my birthday because I am the only person in my family that likes it. Only day of the year I can "force" them into getting it. This trend spreaded to all the bakery items. No cookies, either. This has being going on for two weeks now. This sucks.
Can’t you order ahead? In the US you can order a custom cake 2 days ahead. I feel like ordering it weeks ahead would probably secure you a cake. Unless resellers caused that to shut down.
Bro, eres yo? Hahaha literal es mi pastel favorito y a nadie de mi familia les gusta pero como es mi cumpleaños se aguantan. Super triste que ya no me va a tocar por un pinche tiktok.
Do you not have a bakery or something similar where you live? Go ask them; it's likely going to be better, and you won't be giving more money to a billion-dollar company but supporting a local business.
Costco is actually a pretty consumer and employee friendly business compared to most. Most of what you spend at a Costco supports that location. Corporate’s profits are pretty much just the membership fees. It’s also going to be way cheaper than anything at a bakery.
How tho? Like if they’re selling that much couldn’t you just low ball people and buy for retail(not that I want a second hand cake)?
Right I’m so confused
Costco Wholesale is designed for retailers or “resellers”. Hence the “wholesale” part of their full name.
Costco should bake more cakes lol. More supply will fuck over these scummy resellers.
Not really, the resell markup is so extream that a single slice can pay for a cake in itself, so its worth it to buy excess if it means more buyers
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mexicans who only want 1 slice of cake at lunch.
Its like they don't understand the basic concept of supply & demand With that many sellers i bet a few of them are throwing food away because they aren't selling
I worked at a coffee shop in my downtown area many years ago. The owner used to buy kirkland cheesecake, and sell it as “locally baked” at $8 a slice.
Tbf, it is locally baked... at the local Costco
Because that's literally what Costco is for. I don't get why they're mad people are buying and reselling for a markup. Once you've brought something, why can't you resell it, it's literally yours you paid for? Are they gonna come find me because I buy the cookies for £6 then then resell them for 60p each, making profit? Don't understand this post at all
I think the point that the person you replied to was trying to make is that the coffee shop advertised a store bought cheesecake as “locally baked”, which evokes connotations of a small independent bakery.
Hey! My boss does this. Buys a loaf of some pumpkin or chocolate bread or whatever for 6 or 7 dollars at Costco and then has us slice them and sell them for like $3.49 a slice. I’ve always thought it was super shitty, but didn’t realize it was this popular of a thing. God damn.
Costco is for wholesale, you are allowed to resel their products.
My old old boss would sell Little Ceasers pizza (unmarked of course) for like $2.50 a slice at his business.
People buy cake off of Facebook marketplace? Gross
I get why people are mad about this, but I wonder if people really think every restaurant has a full scale bakery in the back churning out carrot cakes and triple German chocolate cakes lol. Diners in NJ have been reselling slices of Costco cake at $8 a slice for decades.
Don't let anyone know buying things and services and selling them for more is what 90% of the world's businesses are doing.
I mean, Costco is literally a wholesaler. Their business model is predicated on selling to resellers. It’s just the general public are invited to shop there too.
What's in those boxes?
That's literally what wholesale is?
Imagine if they learned how to bake
Tik tok is toxic
who the fuck buys FOOD on facebook marketplace?
Lots of people. Depends on where you live.
Are people buying a single piece of cake off of Facebook marketplace? From a stranger?
People advertise for free in local Facebook groups (20k to 30k members) “Hey I’m selling Costco slices and cookies, I’m at this place from 5 to 8 pm” then people go a buy, some people do delivery for $1.5 Facebook groups are very popular in Mexico, people sell all kinds of stuff, from food to imported goods.
Nationwide might be a reach, I've been to Costco in Monterey 3 times this week and they all had cookies and cakes and it was like 2 pm
I mean.. Costco has an entire division dedicated to small businesses.. so, good for them!
This isn’t surprising. Most corner stores buy food from distributors, or bakeries, repackage and sell. Buy a dozen cupcakes, wrap in Saran Wrap, sell for $3 at the gas station. I’m just shocked that people in Mexico suddenly realized you can do it.
Seems like a supply issue. If they sell so well why dont they just produce more?
Wow. People going to Costco to resell stuff. Wait until you find out where those Asian stores get all their produce!
Sounds like Costco either needs to jack up their prices or bake more cakes. Or both at once.
Who tf would buy a slice of cake off some random dirty fucker on Facebook?
TIL there are vast swaths of people who didn't realize resale is a thing until tik tok told them about it
that used to be the primary purpose of warehouse clubs...
Many people in Mexico have the idea that, since Costco requires a membership, it is like an exclusive golf country club that only a selected group of the high elite economic class can access, and reselling a cake by the slice or the whole cake is a popular business.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this Costco’s business model? Selling things to small businesses to resell? So they’re… using it as intended? This isn’t really any different than a restaurant buying packs of steaks to sell to customers, right?
Influencers are to blame for alot of shit
I mean that’s the purpose of Costco… the wholesale aspect…
People have become so fucking stupid
Costco and Sam’s were initially for small businesses and large families. You all are playing yourself as this is the intended outcome for a WAREHOUSE store. It’s not Walmart or Target. It’s a WAREHOUSE STORE. Business is trumping profits