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Costco will not allow returns on high-demand items like toilet paper, water
- ben174 7y agoI'm glad this is happening. But I could see how a consumer would be upset with this. Were these rules listed when I purchased the product? Why didn't you limit me if you had intentions of limiting what I can return? Costco is very open about their return policy and it's part of the reason people shop there. They can buy things and know they can return them if they don't need them. It may be the wrong reason to buy things, but if that's the case Costco should alter their return policy.
- harikb 7y agoGod, give them a break. People who work there are risking so much to keep a job and in turn provide us a safe shopping experience. I wouldn’t want to burden them more by returning something you can very well store and use. If the person was hoarding to make a profit elsewhere, well they deserve it.
- hvs 7y agoThey did alter their return policy. That's what the article is about.
- mikelward 7y agoGP presumably meant at time of sale, rather than retroactively.
- gimmeThaBeet 7y agoI think a return policy like costco is a two way street. The fact it even is still like it is with the abuse potential is amazing. If they make the effort to stock this in-demand stuff, and people want to abuse their return policy and make their hoarding/arbitrage costco's problem, I don't think costco should have to deal with that, before or after the fact.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoYou can cancel your membership and get a refund if you're unhappy with the new policy.
- loco5niner 7y agoOther stores with generous return policies (REI, etc) have had to cancel them because of abuse. I'm glad Costco recognized the abuse that was in play and acted to shut it down.
- exclusiv 7y agoMy first thought was - who returns toilet paper!?! But I suppose if you're a hoarder or reseller then you'd probably return whatever you don't need/sell. So good move.
- ken 7y agoThat's nothing. I once returned produce to a grocery store!
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y agoThey return it before it's used...
- irishcoffee 7y ago*They return it if they didn't buy it
- downerending 7y agoTheoretically they'll take it either way...
- ChuckMcM 7y agoThis. I talked with the manager from one of the CostCo's near us (happens to be a neighbor) and their reasoning was people were overbuying items in the expectation that if they didn't need them all after all they would just return them. This policy pushes back on that mindset.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y agoThat works iff the policy is known ahead of time
- mplewis 7y agoGreat! Now we know it for next time.
- 7y ago
- mmazing 7y agoHmm. What if some of these people realize they are hurting their community and trying to return what they don't need so others can have it?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mulmen 7y agoIf they are trying to do good they can donate it.
- HumblyTossed 7y agoThey can stand outside Costco and give it away and get some of that Karma back.
- test6554 7y agoOr sell it at the price they paid and break even.
- snejnendh 7y agoAs if any toilet paper hoarders cares one bit about their community
- sys_64738 7y agoPerhaps there are health reasons for it. Maybe they can't resell used toilet paper.
- leptoniscool 7y agoThey should accept the returns so they can restock the shelves again.
- brownkonas 7y agoThey need a week long grace period to get as much back as possible , this is more helpful than pure punishment.
- jbay808 7y agoThey have enough supply available from their normal suppliers to restock the shelves.
- chrissnell 7y agoNobody wants somebody else’s nasty, COVID-covered bag of TP.
- Axsuul 7y agoThis is to prevent further hoarding which will exacerbate losses.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y agoHoarders should just hold on to the toilet paper. It's not perishable, so at least they will have a stash for the next time there is a similar scare, and fewer regular customers will be affected.
- wolco 7y agoHoarders would never return them. That goes against everything. Only failed resellers would.
- rosywoozlechan 7y agoThese panic buyers are a different kind of hoarder. These aren't hoarders buying it due to a mental illness. The people who panic bought a lot of toilet paper did so for what they thought were rational reasons: to get toilet paper before everyone else bought it all, to get toilet paper in case of long term quarantine, perhaps to resell it a higher price, or fear of long term disruption of supply lines. Once these rational reasons turn out to be incorrect they may desire to return their purchase.
- battery_cowboy 7y agoI don't know, man, I "hoarded" 2 months worth of TP: two large packs of 18 "mega-rolls". If I bought enough to fill a room, that'd be like 10 years of TP. I have 2 people in my home, if that helps. Anyone who bought more than ~2-3 large packs was hoarding for resale OR has a huge family.
- BubRoss 7y agoYou are thinking rationally. People buying years of toilet paper while they have food for the next two weeks are not thinking things through.
- catalogia 7y agoIt seems odd to me that their concern was availability of TP, which is not actually essential if times are tough. If they were buying up all the canned food, I'd understand that. But the grocery store I go to ran out of TP, not canned food.
- sithlord 7y agoSo lets say I own a business - and buy for the business, now al the sudden everyone is working from home. As a business owner I can either, return it so others can get it or I can save it for later. Seems like there could be good reason to allow returns.
- jbay808 7y agoIt won't rot, so just keep it for when your business reopens. It's not like you bought a five year supply, right?
- Twixes 7y ago…RIGHT? Anyway, pretty sure that practically none of these people trying to return toilet paper bought it for their business. They just went into quarantine panic (or maybe profiteering?) mode back then.
- stonogo 7y agoOr you could let your staff take some home. They were going to use it anyway.
- HumblyTossed 7y agoIf this is the case, you speak to the Costco management staff and explain the situation. Maybe they'll let you. Maybe they won't. But either way, not allowing returns is the correct move to keep people from hoarding.
- wolco 7y agoThis doesn't stop hoarding. Hoarders keep things well past their usefulness. These are failed amazon/ebay resellers who tried to make a profit but no market existed.
- jachee 7y agoYour parent comment meant short-term, "screw you poors, I've got $7000 cash, so buying it ALL" hoarders, who went in with bad faith motives of reselling/gouging and/or returning excess stock when the run has completed its course.
- Exmoor 7y agoCostco has done a really good job of handling this tough situation. Beyond this, I've noticed a few other things: * Stock most items overnight so that if you absolutely need something you can prioritize getting there before they open and likely getting it rather than having to come back over and over (or go to multiple other stores), which limits exposure. * Set aside additional hours before the general opening for seniors. * Limit high-demand items. This does have some perverse ramifications for a few items. For instance, we wanted about 4 dozen eggs to get us through a few weeks. Unfortunately the smaller packs were limited to 1 so we ended up having to buy 5 dozen. * Flood the market with in-demand items to create confidence. I think this is a Seattle thing, but last week I started seeing social mediate posts showing literal aisles composed of nothing but toilet paper. Many people (myself included to some extent) are just just buying because they don't want to get caught without TP when they run out, but if they feel that it's likely it will be in stock they won't rush out to buy some immediately.
- zamalek 7y agoThey also limit the number of people in aisles, sanitize carts, and are generally trying to do things right.
- 01100011 7y agoNot in the bay area(San Jose, Coleman Ave). I was there a few days ago. Not as busy as a pre-covid Costco of course, but the aisles were still busy and only a couple of the shoppers seemed to have any awareness of personal space. When I went to Lucky market today, they at least had blue tape near the checkout to indicate proper spacing(although the guy behind me was oblivious). Costco needs to step it up. At this point, given how poorly I've seen people respect social distancing, I'm beginning to question its cost to benefit ratio. We are not as disciplined as many other countries.
- 0xbadf00d 7y agoI’m trying to understand the alternative - let contagion continue unchecked and overwhelm medical services?
- cfv 7y agoDeleting this as the hivemind seems to be opposed to actual justice today.
- ropiwqefjnpoa 7y agoThat's mob mentality. We don't need anything like that.
- snejnendh 7y agoLol. “Mob mentality” to punish jerks taking advantage of a pandemic. Go back to your cave, troll.
- cfv 7y agoWe do, though. Literally every other card in the deck is in the hands of the kind of people who will hoard toilet paper to sell it for 10 times its value then publicly complain when outrage mounts.
- ropiwqefjnpoa 7y agoI know that you're imagining, "The Rational Mob". But you'll always end up with the violent angry type though.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wideasleep1 7y agoLike most things Costco...'as it should be'...
- justlexi93 7y agoThe title is confusing, we all know how people for hygiene stuff including toilet papers.
- fortran77 7y agoI have a feeling some people bought HUGE quantities in hopes of selling on Amazon/ebay for inflated prices. When these plans fell through, they're trying to return it.
- Tempest1981 7y agoLike these guys, who rented trucks and drove 1300 miles, hitting every store they could find. They got left holding 17700 bottles of hand sanitizer. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-pu... (Filed under "technology", ha!)
- whatever1 7y agoCostco allows purchases to members only. I do not understand why in the very beginning they did not enforce the purchase limit of each membership to something reasonable e.g. 2 big boxes (~70 rolls) per month.
- downerending 7y agoUnder normal circumstances, there's simply no reason to do this. Some people really do prefer to buy six months' of toilet paper twice a year. Why not let them?
- wideasleep1 7y agoPossibly because they're reasonable, and were dumbfounded, like me, that folks would hoard...toilet paper.
- philwelch 7y agoEspecially that they would "hoard" it at the last minute when a disaster was already in progress. People who stock up on necessities as a normal part of their lives would have been stocked up already and typically only buy these things to backfill from their current consumption. I don't know if this applies to toilet paper, but it's common in the LDS community to have at least 6 months' supply of nonperishable food at all times. Mormons don't typically buy 6 months of food at a time though, they just buy groceries at a normal rate to backfill their pantries via a FIFO rotation. Of course, the rare occasions where someone would buy 6 months of something at a time--e.g. if they recently adopted a lifestyle and/or religion that encouraged this behavior--are easily absorbable by the supply chain assuming not everyone does it at once.
- wideasleep1 7y agoI suppose there was a delay realizing 'The shit has hit the fan! Hoard TP", and they took it too literally. Honestly, the compulsion to 'do something..anything' panic mode is a good explanation, aside from profiteers.
- sabujp 7y agowhy is this on hn? this was like news on the mainstream sites weeks ago.
- tempestn 7y agoSame reason as always: someone posted it, and others found it interesting enough to upvote.
- jb775 7y agoThese are mostly bulky items, it would be an inventory-storage nightmare. Let the d-bags who bought a years supply of toilet paper deal with that themselves.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- taftster 7y agoCostco has a very liberal return policy. This has already been discussed here, but people are buying toilet paper with the ability to easily return in mind. If they can't use it, they will just return it for a full refund. This is an excellent step by Costco to cut down on the return mindset. If you buy pallets worth of toilet paper, good on Costco for not letting you return them. You better have the square footage to deal with your own inventory.
- thomk 7y agoprotip: there are many, many other ways to clean an ass. No need to panic. At worst you'll be inconvenienced.
- thatcat 7y agoOr maybe even find a new solution you like better https://www.amazon.com/Medline-MEDDYND70125-Cleansing-Bottle-8oz/dp/B0055QO4TW https://www.amazon.com/Medline-MEDDYND70125-Cleansing-Bottle...
- carlob 7y ago50%+ of the US population also uses paper when peeing...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- test6554 7y agoNeo: what are you saying? That I can wipe my ass without TP? Morpheus: I’m saying that when you’re ready, you won’t need to.
- _bxg1 7y agoMy favorite part of this is that it implies grifters are failing to offload their stock. They bought it all hoping to profit off of shortages, and then not only did Amazon and Ebay clamp down on reselling, there isn't actually a shortage. Justice.
- dehrmann 7y ago> grifters are failing to offload their stock The word you're looking for is arbitrageur. Or scalper. Grifter implies some thing dishonest. Arbitrageurs are very up-front with what they're doing, and you get exactly why you're paying for.
- reitzensteinm 7y agoThere is dishonesty in this situation. If you ask Costco if it's ok to buy lots of toilet paper to resell, they'll say no. By buying in bulk to arbitrage you're acting against the interests of Costco and their customers, and hoping you fly under the radar.
- gruez 7y ago>There is dishonesty in this situation. If you ask Costco if it's ok to buy lots of toilet paper to resell, they'll say no. That's debatable. Plenty of small businesses buy Costco stuff to resell, or for business use. They even have business memberships! Unless they have explicit no resell notices (although even then it's unclear what legal force they have), I wouldn't say it's dishonest.
- rayhendricks 7y agoCostco literally is designed as a small business supply warehouse. There are some Costco they cater exclusively to this. Now not trying to price gouge in a pandemic is another thing.
- reitzensteinm 7y agoRight, which is why it's easy to fly under the radar. It was poorly worded, but if corporate had a button they could press to stop new entrants buying a bunch in hopes of selling online at high markup, I believe they would. Trouble is, there's no way to filter them out, and any attempt may in itself signal a lack of faith in the system and result in more panic buying.
- nikolay 7y agoYou still need to wait 2-3 hours to get just a pack of toilet paper. In addition, you need to enter a closed space and potentially get infected. High-demand items should be sold outside on the parking lot with either their key fobs or credit cards. This way, the store won't be crazy and infected with so many people wasting hours just to get toilet paper and water. Stop praising Costco too much!
- gnicholas 7y agoI was in the Redwood City Costco today, just as they were running out of TP. It was 11:30 AM, and an employee said to the fellow taking the last pack: "I unload 16 pallets of the stuff every day, and it always runs out!" Conveniently, they had a sign out front showing things they did or did not have in stock, to save you time in case you just came for one thing. The sign included things like TP and bottled water.
- rconti 7y agoInsane. We have some of the best tap water in the world on the Peninsula. WTF.
- KarlKemp 7y agoAt the present moment, people may be buying the container more than the water.
- gnicholas 7y agoWhy do people want a bunch of plastic bottles?
- Consultant32452 7y agoThat's an interesting hypothesis. Why would a person want 50+ 20oz bottles?
- KarlKemp 7y agoTo store water in case civilization ends, obviously.
- StillBored 7y agoI've often wondered if there isn't a "secret" mailing list of people who go around and buy some product with the intention of creating a shortage and making a buck on amazon. The retail equivalent of a bunch of traders gaming some commodity.
- gnicholas 7y agoWhole Foods had signs all over about not taking returns on food due to coronavirus. It's a reasonable position for them to take, given the risk. Months ago I remember seeing a sign in a Whole Foods in SF that asked customers not to load up their reusable bags while shopping (to use a basket/cart instead). The reason was that if you take something off the shelf and later put it back, then you've potentially contaminated someone else's food. This is basically the same logic for not accepting returns (that have been in someone's house) now. Not surprisingly, the signs were mostly clustered near goods that people might stockpile, like pasta and canned tomatoes. Aside from liability, they also want to discourage hoarding.
- blackrock 7y agoI wish Costco would do two things 1) Limit the number of people in the store. Do better crowd control. The over packed stores makes me hate visiting Costco. 2) Make the shopping carts smaller. To allow for easier navigation.
- lenkite 7y agoPopular toilet paper and coronavirus warehouse video making the rounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA4KS546rZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA4KS546rZo
- Fjolsvith 7y agoI think Costco ought to allow returns for these things, for an exchange of a like item.