A warehouse club is a retail store, usually selling a wie variety of merchandise, in which customers pay annual membership fees in order to shop. The clubs are able to keep prices low due to the no-frills format of the stores. In addition, customers are required to buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products, which makes these clubs attractive to both bargain hunters and small business owners. The concept is similar to the many consumers' cooperative supermarkets found in Europe, though using bigger stores and not co-operatively owned. The use of members prices without co-operative ownership is also sometimes used in bars and casinos.