onestepright™
Menu

Pricing · Paired public-record comparison

Raise a fee or lower one: what should you test?

Costco’s membership fee increase and KFC Australia’s lower delivery fees raise different commercial questions. Choose a question and inspect both records.

This comparison uses the existing reviewed cases. Published facts, company explanations and unknowns stay visible. The briefing questions connect that evidence to your own decision.

What did the customer pay for?

Bring these questions to your own pricing decision. Suggested evidence owner: Commercial lead.

  1. Define the product, access or service covered by each charge.
  2. Name the affected customers, channels and effective dates.
  3. Record contract terms and the other items in the customer’s transaction.

The companies cover different offers, customers and reporting periods. Their figures retain those separate definitions.

Add your decision and assumptions

The comparison is read-only. Your business-specific notes belong in the decision sheet. Inputs are not transferred.

Membership fee increase

Costco

The business: Costco is a membership retailer based in Issaquah, Washington, selling food, household goods and other merchandise. It reaches members through warehouses and online stores across several countries. Its fiscal 2025 filing reports 914 warehouses and US$269.9 billion in net sales. Those figures describe the period examined here (Fiscal 2025 Form 10-K, Business and Net Sales).

This public-record case study covers the July 2024 announcement and fiscal 2025 follow-through. The reporting period ends on 31 August 2025. The filing date is 8 October 2025; this is not a statement about current fees.

Define who receives the increase

Published fact: on 10 July 2024, Costco announced changes for the United States and Canada, effective 1 September 2024. Gold Star, Business and Business add-on fees would rise by $5 to $65. Executive fees would rise from $120 to $130. Announcement, membership paragraph, PDF p3.

Reading: the announcement identifies the markets, membership types and effective date. Those boundaries matter when estimating revenue. A group-wide sales total would include business outside the stated scope.

For your increase: which customers, products and markets receive the new price? Who can approve an exception?

Source passages checked 1 November 2026.

Read the complete Costco case and sources

onestepright.com/articles/costco-membership-fee-increase-public-record

Coverage and source register

The sources establish an announcement and selected company-reported follow-through. Internal testing, exception approvals and individual customer responses remain unknown. No missing evidence receives a low score.

This case makes no claim that Costco is a client. It assigns no diagnostic score and draws no investment conclusion. One membership business does not establish what another business can charge.

The price increase realisation guide separates announced increases from the revenue retained. The discount approval guide addresses exception authority. Those questions remain useful even when the public record cannot answer them.

Source passages checked 1 November 2026. PDF pages count from the first file page. Form 10-K references use the printed page numbers in the SEC HTML filing.

Value offers and lower delivery fees

KFC Australia

The business: KFC sells chicken meals through restaurants and digital channels. This case covers the Australian KFC restaurants operated by Collins Foods. Its Australian support centre is in Brisbane. That Australian KFC business reported A$1.24 billion in FY26 revenue. Sources S1, S4.

This read covers selected FY25, HY26 and FY26 disclosures. The commercial question concerns investment in customer value. This case examines offers and delivery fees. The focus is KFC Australia. Later group developments are outside this reading.

Did the record show another change in customer terms?

What the record shows: The December 2025 presentation described lower delivery fees. It also discussed personalised app offers and reported a 41.7% digital sales mix. Digital included delivery, web, app, kiosks and click-and-collect. S3, PDF page 15.

Reading: The customer’s transaction includes more than menu prices. A lower delivery fee changes the basket economics. Channel mix also changes how a reported sales result should be read.

Unknown: Digital sales are not synonymous with delivery sales. The passage does not quantify the fee change’s independent effect.

For your decision: Compare net contribution per comparable order after fees and channel costs. Keep direct orders separate from aggregator orders where their economics differ.

Source passages checked 2 November 2026.

Read the complete KFC Australia case and sources

onestepright.com/articles/kfc-australia-value-pricing-public-record

Coverage and source register

The sources describe selected public statements through the FY26 results presentation. This reading does not assess Collins Foods’ internal controls or every pricing decision. A missing public detail does not show that an internal check was absent.

This case is an outside reading of company disclosures. It does not imply a consulting relationship or an independent audit. It offers no investment recommendation. Company explanations remain attributed.

Source passages checked 2 November 2026. PDF pages count from the first file page, including covers. Historical measures retain their original periods and scope.