8 April—The picture below is from a BJ’s flyer or brochure (if you live in the Borough) I found the other day in my extortionately priced post office box. Someone in BJ’s advertising department must have been having lots of fun. Is the swimmer preparing to dive or is he praying that he won’t drown? More to the point, BJ’s prices aren’t taking a dip at all. So what else is new?

Does anybody really believe any retail prices are taking a dip? On the other hand, it’s not all that hard to convince gullible consumers of anything. All retailers do it. So why should BJ’s be different from other businesses, virtually all of which are taking full advantage of inflation to raise their prices, thus playing—and winning at—the inflation-price-spiral game? Charging what the market will bear to maximize profit or unconscionable price gouging. Call it what you will. That’s what capitalism is all about.

But wait. Why did I even mention retail prices? Isn’t BJ’s a wholesale club? At least that’s what it calls itself; and to prove it, its corporate name is BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. Really. But its so-called wholesale club in Torrington could have fooled me. I assume they’re all like that, but most are probably bigger.

Evidently BJ’s can call itself anything it wants and not be prosecuted for deceptive trade practices because it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that neither its prices nor the quantities of merchandise it sells to individuals over the counter are anything like wholesale.

The club part is clever marketing and somewhat less deceptive than the wholesale bit; it’s also guaranteed, albeit insignificant, income for the company, as only “members” who pay an annual subscription (club dues?) can shop at BJ’s. Well, anybody can shop, but they need a BJ’s card—not necessarily their own—to check out. So BJ’s is just a chain of big-box outlets with an added charge. Like Costco.

About two decades ago, around the time BJ’s opened its Torrington location, in order to compare prices of apples and oranges I drove down to the Costco outlet in Waterbury with a friend who actually believed she was getting better buys there than at the local supermarkets. Once was enough for me. Not only was the total Costco experience underwhelming, it was positively negative. Costco also deceptively calls itself “wholesale”—Costco Wholesale Corporation—and gets away with it.

Sam’s Club, a division of mammoth big-box non-club Walmart Inc., is bigger than BJ’s but smaller than Costco. It was called Sam’s Wholesale Club while Sam Walton was alive, but evidently Sam’s heirs, assigns, and successor corporate brass decided to drop the pretense. I’ve never been to nor even seen a Sam’s Club, so I can’t fairly comment on it.

So what if BJ’s and Costco call themselves wholesale clubs but are really big-box retailers? Are they hurting customers—sorry, members? I can’t say. BJ’s certainly isn’t hurting me. I cherry-pick there just as I do at any other retailer. I reckon that just so long as what they sell isn’t misrepresented, truth in advertising doesn’t extend to business names.

And what’s in a name anyway? Now that it no longer sells anything for a dollar, will Dollar Tree update its name to Dollar-and-a-Quarter Tree?