If Wendy’s offers a $5 value meal that includes a sandwich, chicken nuggets, fries, and a soda, Burger King and McDonald’s run the risk of losing value-based customers, even if those people prefer eating at the other two chains.
Cash-strapped consumers are cutting back on spending, and that has driven chains to discount more.
“Based on data from multiple sources, there does appear to be a contraction in overall QSR traffic,” Berry AI CEO Eric Lam told The Food Institute. “As a result, there will be an increase in ‘value meal’ offerings across brands. But this is a tricky dance.”
Value isn’t solely price, and McDonald’s and Burger King don’t want to copy what Wendy’s has traditionally done, but the current market has forced them to offer more value-based choices.
The same thing happens in retail, but when it comes to grocery and supermarkets, Walmart and Amazon don’t appear to be keeping up with Costco on price, which allows the membership-based chain to maintain its pricing crown without pressure to go even lower.
Walmart takes on grocery chains
Costco’s grocery basket, as checked by Consumer Reports, comes in at 21.9% cheaper than Walmart’s. Amazon was not included in the study.
Price has been causing Albertsons to lose customers, and CEO Susan Morris shared where those shoppers are going during the chain’s first-quarter earnings call.
“Our biggest leakage is to the big players, to Walmart, Amazon,” she said, speaking specifically of losing lower-income customers.
Albertsons’s Safeway brand came in at 8.8% more expensive than Walmart while its Stop & Shop brand was 22% more expensive and its Jewel-Osco chain was 29.7% pricier, according to the Consumer Reports study.
That gives Walmart and Amazon an opportunity to grow share by taking customers from traditional grocery players without having to match Costco’s prices.
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Walmart U.S. President David Guggina sees the ability to take more share from grocery chains.
“Grocery is the fastest-moving item, and we are the largest grocer in the U.S.,” he said during the retail giant’s Sept. 9, 2025 earnings call.
Amazon sees grocery growth
Amazon is following behind Walmart, according to CEO Andy Jassy.
“We have Same-Day fresh food delivery in over 2,300 towns and cities across the country. Our grocery business has grown to over $150 billion in gross sales in 2025, making Amazon the second-largest grocer in the U.S.’ he wrote in his 2025 annual shareholders’ letter.
Amazon and Walmart, however, can grow without taking Costco’s customers, RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Misernadino told TheStreet.
“Look, Walmart and Amazon aren’t lying awake at night trying to beat Costco on price. They don’t have to. They know Costco is playing an entirely different game — bulk buying behind a membership paywall where the average ring at the register is pushing two hundred bucks,” he said.
Amazon and Walmart can undercut traditional grocery chains, he noted.
“Traditional grocery operates on thin margins with high overhead, and their shelf prices reflect it. Walmart uses its massive supply chain muscle to undercut those traditional grocers by 10% to 15% across the board, while Amazon uses Prime, automated fulfillment, and aggressive price-matching algorithms to keep traditional grocery locked out of digital market share,” he added.
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Costco sees competition differently
Normally, when a company says something like that, it sees itself as its biggest competitor; it sounds like a coach saying his team just focuses on giving 110% or some other meaningless cliché.
In Costco’s case, however, CFO Gary Millerchip makes a pretty compelling case that none of its rivals are pushing the warehouse club on price.
“I think maybe taking a step back and talk about the competitive landscape, we think of the market as being very rational currently. You know, we tend to be our own biggest competitor,” he said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
That’s a bad line from most CFO’s, but Costco has built its business around member retention, and that does create pressure to keep prices lower than its rivals.
“With our goal being always to maintain that pricing authority and to be there for our members,” he added.
CEO Ron Vachris explained how the chain broadly maintains its price authority, and it’s not based on anything Amazon or Walmart does.
“We have always talked long-standingly that we are the first to come down and the last to go up,” he said.
Costco’s U.S. and Canada renewal rate came in at 92.2% for Q3, while its worldwide rate held at 89.7%. Total paid membership was 82.9 million at Q3’s end, up 4.1%, and total cardholders are 149 million, up 4%.
