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Costco is a terrible example for the point you are trying to make. Costco (rather famously) makes most of it's money from the membership. https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/13/how-costco-actuall...

In a way, the cheap bulk goods are just a way to convince people to get the membership.

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That sounds like "cars are just a way to make people come to the car dealership". Technically, this is true, but "just" here is not playing a good role. The whole point of the thing is the cheap bulk goods, so "just" is not really applicable there. You can't remove it without making all the rest utterly pointless.

Not really. The card/membership is useless without the retail aspect.

It is sort of like claiming Netflix is a membership-selling company that happens to run a streaming service.

Though you could make this argument for gyms, which are notorious for selling a lot of memberships to people who lack/lose the motivation to use them.

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