> For me, the value they provide is curation of selection and filtering for quality Yes, this is huge. They have pretty good buyers in many of their product ca

> For me, the value they provide is curation of selection and filtering for quality Yes, this is huge. They have pretty good buyers in many of their product categories. And while Costco does not always have the lowest price, they often do for many items. And, as you said, you have the benefit of usually being able to rely on them for having picked a set of products that more than "good enough" (and sometimes the best in their categories, too) so you don't have waste tons of time shopping around, reading reviews, and so forth.