How does Directbuy make money?

On their website Directbuy states something along the lines of as a member of directbuy you will enjoy shopping with ';no traditional mark ups';. Now my mother in law insists that they only make money on memberships, but I have a strong suspicion that they make money on commissions from the companies they sell for. If anyone is familiar with affiliate marketing on the Internet, I assume it may be the same principal. If they say no traditional markups, it means that there is some sort of markup, maybe not a traditional markup.



The reason I ask is because I want to buy cabinets from home depot, but my mother in law said that directbuy stopped selling the same cabinets due to poor quality in manufacturing. I feel that maybe they could have stopped carrying them for other reasons, for instance, they weren't selling enough to make good commissions.



Any help?How does Directbuy make money?
Any company that is not the manufacturer - They are making money from each sale.



There's alot of these so called ';Wholesale'; sites and crap, but you can't buy anything at wholesale price unless you are buying straight from the manufacturer.

There can't be a middleman.