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If you're worried about quality, you should really look into Costco. Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I've also worked with som

If you're worried about quality, you should really look into Costco. Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I've also worked with some of their buyers / purchasers - best in the business for sure. Very QA focus company

darkerside 5y ago
I've found Costco to offer products that have premium "specs" at affordable prices, but I'm often underwhelmed by the product itself.
xmprt 5y ago
I've never had to deal with it but I've also heard they have great customer service too so if that's something that you're worried you'll miss out on by switching, then don't be.
- yuy910616 5y ago
  I had a funny one - I was returning a bunch of unopened wine and I told the guy, there is one that was opened, indicating that when you see the open one please give it back to me. He was kinda rude and I was like wtf. And then he proceeds to return all of the wine, I asked him "dude wheres the open bottle?" And he said "I thought you were returning that one too?" Turns out in some states - they allow you to return opened bottle of wine. We laughed it off
  - dylan604 5y ago
    How much do you have to return? That could be the most rewarding bottle recycling plan I've heard of. Screw your 10 cents, I want a refill.
    - yuy910616 5y ago
      haha, by his attitude, I'm assuming that people have abuse this policy before. I'm thinking if you return the empty bottle, they'll still take it, albeit a bit gruntled. Mine was about 2/3 gone. Definitely beyond of the point of "hm..this wine taste funny" Over the years I've had so many little moments like this with Costco, whether it is a friendly exchange with a gas station attendee, a door person stopping me and pointing out that I was over-charged, a service rep who couldn't find an off-brand pedialyte I purchased so they gave me a pedialyte and told me "eh yeah just don't tell anyone", it really started to make sense to me why when you mention Costco - some people would light up and say "man I LOVE Costco", when it's just a store.
ashtonkem 5y ago
I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever had a negative experience with Costco. Or any negative experience I might’ve had they fixed so quickly that I’ve forgotten it, either way.
- yuy910616 5y ago
  And their employee actually gets treated pretty well - when I go to Sam's club, I always feel bad; maybe I'm projecting.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I’ve shopped at both (based on location I lived), and the Costco employees always seemed in a better mood than the Sam’s employees. I figured it had to do with how the company, and maybe the customers, treated them.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >and maybe the customers I don't think people give this enough credit. It's one thing to be shit on by your employer, but having the customers treating like shit as well is just as bad. Getting the double whammy of getting it from both sides must be brutal.
      - indymike 5y ago
        > It's one thing to be shit on by your employer, but having the customers treating like shit as well is just as bad. Spent a few years in retail, and can tell you: if management treats employees badly, customers will treat employees badly, which in turn causes another cycle of management treating employees badly. It's a cycle that is caused when management and employees aren't focused on the one thing that really matters in a retail exchange: having happy customers.
        ashtonkem 5y ago
        I was going to say: I think there’s a mixture of customer selection and signaling from management going on here. I think Costco (and all stores really), subtly signal how their employees are to be treated, which creates a norm and a social expectation that most people implicitly follow. I think the fact that Costco employees don’t have to wear a full uniform is part of it. They have a clear identification that they’re an employee, as is necessary, but they also don’t have to wear a uniform that strips them of as much individuality as possible.
colordrops 5y ago
Just don't buy an extended warranty for an expensive piece of electronics. The SquareTrade warranty I bought with a Dell XPS 15 was absolute trash. Sent it in three times due to a swollen battery. Replacements only held 5 minutes of charge. After the third time getting a fake battery I just gave up.
- tdeck 5y ago
  SquareTrade is a third party company so I suspect they cut corners. It's arguably worth buying a manufacturer warranty for certain devices, particularly business class laptops.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    No doubt. Costco has no business offering these as the poor quality is associated with their own brand.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Right, but I think this speaks poorly of Costco, too. If, as claimed, Costco does their homework on QA and vetting brands and products, it's a huge hole in their reputation that they did such a bad job vetting the extended warranty vendors they allow to sell in their store.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- indymike 5y ago
  > The SquareTrade warranty I bought with a Dell XPS 15 was absolute trash. I'm dealing with a trash warranty from Assurion on an electronic drum kit I bought at Guitar Center for my son. Not a good experience - I have to ship drums back to some warehouse to get a gift card? Um... that's $50 worth of packaging right there. Oh, and then I have to buy the warranty again if I want the replacement covered. Yes, I should have read the fine print in detail... but maybe the retailer shouldn't offer horrible experiences like this for a premium.
rm999 5y ago
>Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I worked at a competitor to Costco; I would argue this isn't quite accurate, and that this statement applies to Amazon about as much. The key distinction between Amazon and Costco is Costco sells a small (1-10 thousand) number of SKUs while Amazon wants to have as many as possible (100s of millions). Costco can vet every product, and can quickly discontinue products that have a lot of returns or complaints. Amazon scales in the opposite direction and concentrates on building tools for sellers to sell whatever will sell. But here's the rub: by limiting the number of SKUs Costco has to appeal to the masses. You won't get the best TV, or air purifier, or cheese, or pants, etc at Costco. You will get something that has been vetted to be good enough for most people and provides a good price point. When you buy their white labeled products (Kirkland et al) you will sometimes actually get substandard products as they shift suppliers without telling their customers, but that's another topic. If you really want the highest quality you have to either have to seek out brands that optimize for this or dig into the supply chain and understand where your products are actually coming from. For something like an air purifier I would choose Amazon over Costco any day because it allows me to choose the brand and model I want.
- zwily 5y ago
  For most purchases, what you described is exactly what I want - something that will be solid without having too research too much. For the few things I really care about, I will research and source differently.
- iamdbtoo 5y ago
  This used to be exactly what I used Amazon for before the listings became polluted. Since then I've switched to Costco for the reason the other commenter mentions: They pick solid products for everyday things and I can trust their incentives on some level. I have no confidence in any of the products on Amazon anymore that aren't big brands and even then I'm uneasy.
- x0x0 5y ago
  That kind of sounds great -- for most things, you just want (a) good enough, and (b) not fake. Amazon has gotten really bad at both of those. I recently needed to replace an air filter, and there were endless complaints about fakes on amazon. I ended up having to buy it directly from a specialty manufacturer which was a pain.
sixothree 5y ago
I'm just not a huge fan of the subscription model. The last time I had a subscription I only ended up making a single purchase during my entire year.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Prime is a subscription model, and is twice as much as Costco's.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    It's also optional though, Costco membership isn't.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Why would you shop at Amazon as a non-prime member? If you're going to be sold knock-offs and returns sold as new products, you might as well get some videos and movies to watch for the hastle. Edit: you can also find a friend with a Costco membership and go with them. It's not like it's that exclusive.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        And a long with that, why would you buy from Amazon without Prime, and deal with slow, non-free shipping, when many competitors (Target, Walmart, etc.) have upped their game and offer 2-day shipping with a relatively low total purchase amount, with no membership fee needed?
      - sixothree 5y ago
        This is actually a good point. Amazon is only able to sell that cheap crap because their return policy is so good. Without prime you literally might as well just order the stuff straight from china. And to be fair, Costco worked a lot better for me when it was in the general direction of where I work.
- Railsify 5y ago
cma 5y ago
Costco also sells weird trash products, but a least you can normally tell by the description: https://www.reddit.com/r/Costco/comments/ojhrts/costco_is_devaluing_their_brand_by_selling_snake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Costco/comments/ojhrts/costco_is_de...
fnord77 5y ago
one thing I dislike about costco - costco-specific models make finding reviews hard.
- bb88 5y ago
  They take the pain out of returns though.
  - danesparza 5y ago
    I can vouch for this. I have returned items a year later. Without original packaging. Without a receipt. They gave me my money back no questions asked and they were even friendly about it.
    - Camillo 5y ago
      Why would you need to return something (opened, used, without packaging) a year later?
      - bb88 5y ago
        It fails to do what it lived up to do. I had an IOT plug fail (plastic melt) and returned it, and they took it back, no questions asked.
lanevorockz 5y ago
Completely agree, there are a few business cases that completely exemplify this. Don’t let the shallow information internet comments tell you otherwise. Anyways, Costco model is simple … but large quantities of high quality products and work as a trusted distributor for business traders. They don’t always get it right, but they loose money doing so. If a product doesn’t sell and gets devalued, they will hold thousands across the world.

darkerside 5y ago

I've found Costco to offer products that have premium "specs" at affordable prices, but I'm often underwhelmed by the product itself.

xmprt 5y ago

I've never had to deal with it but I've also heard they have great customer service too so if that's something that you're worried you'll miss out on by switching, then don't be.

yuy910616 5y ago
I had a funny one - I was returning a bunch of unopened wine and I told the guy, there is one that was opened, indicating that when you see the open one please give it back to me. He was kinda rude and I was like wtf. And then he proceeds to return all of the wine, I asked him "dude wheres the open bottle?" And he said "I thought you were returning that one too?" Turns out in some states - they allow you to return opened bottle of wine. We laughed it off
- dylan604 5y ago
  How much do you have to return? That could be the most rewarding bottle recycling plan I've heard of. Screw your 10 cents, I want a refill.
  - yuy910616 5y ago
    haha, by his attitude, I'm assuming that people have abuse this policy before. I'm thinking if you return the empty bottle, they'll still take it, albeit a bit gruntled. Mine was about 2/3 gone. Definitely beyond of the point of "hm..this wine taste funny" Over the years I've had so many little moments like this with Costco, whether it is a friendly exchange with a gas station attendee, a door person stopping me and pointing out that I was over-charged, a service rep who couldn't find an off-brand pedialyte I purchased so they gave me a pedialyte and told me "eh yeah just don't tell anyone", it really started to make sense to me why when you mention Costco - some people would light up and say "man I LOVE Costco", when it's just a store.

ashtonkem 5y ago

I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever had a negative experience with Costco. Or any negative experience I might’ve had they fixed so quickly that I’ve forgotten it, either way.

yuy910616 5y ago
And their employee actually gets treated pretty well - when I go to Sam's club, I always feel bad; maybe I'm projecting.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I’ve shopped at both (based on location I lived), and the Costco employees always seemed in a better mood than the Sam’s employees. I figured it had to do with how the company, and maybe the customers, treated them.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >and maybe the customers I don't think people give this enough credit. It's one thing to be shit on by your employer, but having the customers treating like shit as well is just as bad. Getting the double whammy of getting it from both sides must be brutal.
    - indymike 5y ago
      > It's one thing to be shit on by your employer, but having the customers treating like shit as well is just as bad. Spent a few years in retail, and can tell you: if management treats employees badly, customers will treat employees badly, which in turn causes another cycle of management treating employees badly. It's a cycle that is caused when management and employees aren't focused on the one thing that really matters in a retail exchange: having happy customers.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        I was going to say: I think there’s a mixture of customer selection and signaling from management going on here. I think Costco (and all stores really), subtly signal how their employees are to be treated, which creates a norm and a social expectation that most people implicitly follow. I think the fact that Costco employees don’t have to wear a full uniform is part of it. They have a clear identification that they’re an employee, as is necessary, but they also don’t have to wear a uniform that strips them of as much individuality as possible.

colordrops 5y ago

Just don't buy an extended warranty for an expensive piece of electronics. The SquareTrade warranty I bought with a Dell XPS 15 was absolute trash. Sent it in three times due to a swollen battery. Replacements only held 5 minutes of charge. After the third time getting a fake battery I just gave up.

tdeck 5y ago
SquareTrade is a third party company so I suspect they cut corners. It's arguably worth buying a manufacturer warranty for certain devices, particularly business class laptops.
- colordrops 5y ago
  No doubt. Costco has no business offering these as the poor quality is associated with their own brand.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Right, but I think this speaks poorly of Costco, too. If, as claimed, Costco does their homework on QA and vetting brands and products, it's a huge hole in their reputation that they did such a bad job vetting the extended warranty vendors they allow to sell in their store.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
indymike 5y ago
> The SquareTrade warranty I bought with a Dell XPS 15 was absolute trash. I'm dealing with a trash warranty from Assurion on an electronic drum kit I bought at Guitar Center for my son. Not a good experience - I have to ship drums back to some warehouse to get a gift card? Um... that's $50 worth of packaging right there. Oh, and then I have to buy the warranty again if I want the replacement covered. Yes, I should have read the fine print in detail... but maybe the retailer shouldn't offer horrible experiences like this for a premium.

rm999 5y ago

>Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I worked at a competitor to Costco; I would argue this isn't quite accurate, and that this statement applies to Amazon about as much. The key distinction between Amazon and Costco is Costco sells a small (1-10 thousand) number of SKUs while Amazon wants to have as many as possible (100s of millions). Costco can vet every product, and can quickly discontinue products that have a lot of returns or complaints. Amazon scales in the opposite direction and concentrates on building tools for sellers to sell whatever will sell. But here's the rub: by limiting the number of SKUs Costco has to appeal to the masses. You won't get the best TV, or air purifier, or cheese, or pants, etc at Costco. You will get something that has been vetted to be good enough for most people and provides a good price point. When you buy their white labeled products (Kirkland et al) you will sometimes actually get substandard products as they shift suppliers without telling their customers, but that's another topic. If you really want the highest quality you have to either have to seek out brands that optimize for this or dig into the supply chain and understand where your products are actually coming from. For something like an air purifier I would choose Amazon over Costco any day because it allows me to choose the brand and model I want.

zwily 5y ago
For most purchases, what you described is exactly what I want - something that will be solid without having too research too much. For the few things I really care about, I will research and source differently.
iamdbtoo 5y ago
This used to be exactly what I used Amazon for before the listings became polluted. Since then I've switched to Costco for the reason the other commenter mentions: They pick solid products for everyday things and I can trust their incentives on some level. I have no confidence in any of the products on Amazon anymore that aren't big brands and even then I'm uneasy.
x0x0 5y ago
That kind of sounds great -- for most things, you just want (a) good enough, and (b) not fake. Amazon has gotten really bad at both of those. I recently needed to replace an air filter, and there were endless complaints about fakes on amazon. I ended up having to buy it directly from a specialty manufacturer which was a pain.

sixothree 5y ago

I'm just not a huge fan of the subscription model. The last time I had a subscription I only ended up making a single purchase during my entire year.

dylan604 5y ago
Prime is a subscription model, and is twice as much as Costco's.
- kadoban 5y ago
  It's also optional though, Costco membership isn't.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Why would you shop at Amazon as a non-prime member? If you're going to be sold knock-offs and returns sold as new products, you might as well get some videos and movies to watch for the hastle. Edit: you can also find a friend with a Costco membership and go with them. It's not like it's that exclusive.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      And a long with that, why would you buy from Amazon without Prime, and deal with slow, non-free shipping, when many competitors (Target, Walmart, etc.) have upped their game and offer 2-day shipping with a relatively low total purchase amount, with no membership fee needed?
    - sixothree 5y ago
      This is actually a good point. Amazon is only able to sell that cheap crap because their return policy is so good. Without prime you literally might as well just order the stuff straight from china. And to be fair, Costco worked a lot better for me when it was in the general direction of where I work.
Railsify 5y ago

cma 5y ago

Costco also sells weird trash products, but a least you can normally tell by the description: https://www.reddit.com/r/Costco/comments/ojhrts/costco_is_devaluing_their_brand_by_selling_snake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Costco/comments/ojhrts/costco_is_de...

fnord77 5y ago

one thing I dislike about costco - costco-specific models make finding reviews hard.

bb88 5y ago
They take the pain out of returns though.
- danesparza 5y ago
  I can vouch for this. I have returned items a year later. Without original packaging. Without a receipt. They gave me my money back no questions asked and they were even friendly about it.
  - Camillo 5y ago
    Why would you need to return something (opened, used, without packaging) a year later?
    - bb88 5y ago
      It fails to do what it lived up to do. I had an IOT plug fail (plastic melt) and returned it, and they took it back, no questions asked.

lanevorockz 5y ago

Completely agree, there are a few business cases that completely exemplify this. Don’t let the shallow information internet comments tell you otherwise. Anyways, Costco model is simple … but large quantities of high quality products and work as a trusted distributor for business traders. They don’t always get it right, but they loose money doing so. If a product doesn’t sell and gets devalued, they will hold thousands across the world.