That’s our One+ tier. So folks that pay $110 and have our co-brand and Mastercard product, those folks tend to be our best members. They visit us the most and they spend the most. They renew well north of 95% on average. So even underneath the covers of that number was very strong. And we continue to project hitting a 90% renewal rate for this year again. So we are very pleased the team did a wonderful job really getting after it. I don’t think they were happy with the Q2 performance, even though it was just slightly below our plans in Q2. So they hit the gas nicely in the third quarter, and I would hope that we can continue to put up good numbers there. As you know, that’s the lifeblood of our business and something that we’ve been working very hard on.
As I think about the last 5, 6, 7 years here, it was not exactly a given that we would grow our membership quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year in comp clubs and in the full chain with new clubs 6 or 7 years ago, and we are routinely growing the membership every quarter in new members in new markets, in existing markets. So it’s quite a neat dynamic, quite a neat marker of our progress as a company over a big chunk of time that we’ve been working on. To get to your question on discounting, I don’t know that, that really matters to us, Robbie. Really, we’re trying to find the right members with the right offer. And the fact of the matter is, we have a bunch of different offers out in the market at any one point in time. We are trying to target different segments with different offers.
We are trying to find the right portfolio of members. And I guess I would point you back to the fact that we have grown our dollars per member consistently over the past several years. Really, you’ve heard us talk about a fee increase without a fee increase. Our dollars per member is up well over $5 over the last 5 years and continues to be even as we try different offer structures out there in the market. So again, we’re very pleased with our membership. It was the highlight of the quarter in our view because it will drive long-term health of the business.
Robert Ohmes: And Bob, maybe just a quick follow-up. Can you remind us on a member that you bring in on a discount, if you bring somebody into a $20 special instead of $55 or $65 instead of $110, what’s the — is the renewal rate dramatically different for someone brought in that way? Can you remind us what you guys have said about that?
Bob Eddy: Yes. Look, I guess I would answer this way, Robbie. Everybody that comes in on a discount is put into our automatic renewal program as renewal. And so they renew through that function at full rates in the second year. And we continue to have about 80% of our entire portfolio in easy renewal and that grew a little bit during the quarter, and we’ll continue to try and grow that piece as well. It’s a nice piece of bedrock underneath the membership and obviously, the cash flows of the company.
Operator: Our next question comes from Peter Benedict with Baird. Peter, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Peter Benedict: Talk a little bit more about the general merchandise and services category, down 11% in the third quarter, a little better than 2Q. Of course, it sounds like the general merchandise component, and that got better sequentially. Just maybe talk a little bit more about what your view is there as you head into the fourth quarter. How you’re thinking about grocery versus general merchandise in that comp view that you guys laid out for the fourth quarter? That’s my first question.
Bob Eddy: Peter, thanks for the question. It’s a good one. We tried to — so as I said, simplify the story line a little bit because there’s a bunch of stuff in that GM services comp of down 11% that we that we talked about. The general merchandise business, as you know, is one of our big strategic focus points for this year and the next several years. It’s a place that we are definitely underpenetrated in. We can considerably grow that business, we believe, and it will be key to the lifetime value equation to our members as we go forward. It’s very much the treasure hunt aspect, the emotional aspect of shopping in our clubs is finding a great general merchandise item when you’re in shopping for something a little less exciting like paper tolls or laundry detergent.
Our team has done an astounding amount of work to really start the process of reinvigorating our general merchandise business. We’ve reset the talent. We’ve reset many of the categories. The way that we design assortments, design the value proposition to the members and deliver it in the clubs. As I walk our buildings in the last few weeks and months, I see a dramatic transformation. I don’t how you could see it any other way. The quality of the products we have on the floor is compelling. The values are fantastic, the way that our operations team members are putting them on the floor for our members to see has dramatically improved over prior years. And our members are reacting in the categories that we have really redone, and we talked about TVs and toys and apparel and gift wear.
