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I love Costco, truly. I love the lack of mental noise I feel when I browse the aisles. I love the selection of goods and pricing leverage they have on manufactu

I love Costco, truly. I love the lack of mental noise I feel when I browse the aisles. I love the selection of goods and pricing leverage they have on manufacturers and their competitors. However, Costco's technology is woefully inadequate for a wholesaler of their size. I've even heard this from Costco employees dealing with their employees portal (shout to /r/costco). Lack of sufficient tech is a systemic issue with them. How is it possible that they cannot give me an accurate inventory of the items in the stores near me? Sometimes I see a product on social media and think "Hey it would be great to know if that product is only offered in Southwest US Costcos. Even trying to find a map of the store and where the products are kept (when there is some flux) is troublesome (yes, I get it's the "Ikea" method of needing to push you through the entire store).

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
I agree, but the fact is probably that they don't want you to know. They want you to have to show up and end up buying stuff. They also continually rearrange their stores for no apparent reason, so you're wandering around looking for the same item you bought two weeks ago. I like Costco, but have considered abandoning it because I'm sick of staple items I've bought for years there just... disappearing. You drive over there and start scouring the aisles for, say, brown rice. NOPE. They just don't have it anymore. And in many cases it's KIRKLAND products. I understand that a supply of something might temporarily dry up, but then I wish Costco would replace it with the same thing from another supplier at full price if need be. Then at least I can get my shopping done without driving all over town. If I'm going to have to do that, screw it; I'll just go to the regular grocery store.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  If you want brown rice in bulk for cheap, have you considered immigrant stores? I ask because I used to go to Makro (the Central European membership-based wholesale chain) for rice, but then I learned that shops serving Indian Subcontinent and Vietnamese diasporas offered rice and other nice things in bulk for prices comparable to that mainstream wholesaler.
- fouc 3y ago
  KIRKLAND is Costco's brand, it's a white label of a consistent reliable product. Your favorite brown rice brand could've ended up appearing as a kirkland product. I'm surprised at the shortage of brown rice though, last time I went into Costco I was amazed at the sheer number of gluten free, keto friendly, organic friendly etc products.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The most obvious case of that is the KIRKLAND tortilla chips, they don't even try to hide who makes them. https://images.costcobusinessdelivery.com/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=12028466&itemId=44004&recipeName=680&viewId=1 https://images.costcobusinessdelivery.com/ImageDelivery/imag...
    - hyperbovine 3y ago
      The organic Costco tortilla chips are much better. No idea who makes them but it’s definitely not Mission.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    Op is saying Kirkland brands disappear too. I’ve experienced this as well with their wines.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Costco staples aren't necessarily your staples; there are certain products that Costco has continually had in stock for more than the 20+ years I've been wandering the aisles in search of the Arc of the Covenant (I'm certain it's somewhere in there). But other things that look like stapes can come and go, some seasonally, some after a few years. Costco is a very "go first" store - you go there, get what you can, and then flesh everything else out at some other store that will keep things in stock even when they get pricey. Costco is also not the cheapest, not by far, but they are the most consistent. Butter and soda are two of the most noticeable for me, you can easily beat Costco on both, butter because local producers often supply local stores cheaper, and soda because it's a loss-leader in many places. There are others, find them!
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Who thinks of buying butter at Costco? Who would need that much butter to begin with? There are definitely some items I don't buy at costco simply because I don't need that volume of food.
    - not_the_fda 3y ago
      Butter freezes very well. Stock up and you always have some.
    - adave 3y ago
      Families, people who bake or meal prep.Ever tried making ghee, requires a lot of butter.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Four pounds of butter isn't that much if you do any cooking, or if you cook in butter instead of oil, etc. I have ten pounds of butter, none of it Costco (the local gas station sometimes goes nuts on sale). Reminds me of: > The Costcos don’t want you to know this but the butters at the gas station are cheaper you can take them home I have 458 pounds of butter.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  Kirkland-brand stuff is generally relabeled products from various manufacturers, and usually picked from top-tier stuff; while the details are usually kept quiet, people have matched up 1-to-1 equivalents with other, more expensive products.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    A co-worker who once worked sales for a food distributor explained this to me. A term of art if one is interested: “private label”.
- graton 3y ago
  Not brown rice, but I guess there is a shortage and now hoarding of rice happening[1]. India has supposedly banned the export of non-basmati white rice. I guess this could impact brown rice supplies if people who can't get white rice switch to brown rice. Not too hard to hoard rice. It doesn't require refrigeration and can be stored for a long time. Like toilet paper! [1] https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/people-hoarding-bags-rice-indians-us-rush-stores-after-govt-export-ban-180127 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/people-hoarding-bags-r...
- ZeroSolstice 3y ago
  Its a wholesale club. Replacing an item at full price would be the complete opposite purpose of the store and membership. Its not about the available supply of a product, its about Costco using its purchasing power to buy the product at a cheaper rate in bulk. If the supplier changes the price that item it has to be re-evaluated.[1][2] "If Costco feels the wholesale price of any individual product is too high, they will refuse to stock the product. For example, in November 2009, Costco announced that it would stop selling Coca-Cola products because the soft-drink maker refused to lower its wholesale prices.[96] Costco resumed selling Coca-Cola products the following month.[1]" Info on Kirkland Signature[3] information. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Kirkland_Signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Kirkland_Signature [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20091216131039/http://www.ajc.com/business/coke-returns-to-costco-236727.html https://web.archive.org/web/20091216131039/http://www.ajc.co... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/05/business/costco-kirkland-signature/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/05/business/costco-kirkland-sign...
foo92691 3y ago
> How is it possible that they cannot give me an accurate inventory of the items in the stores near me? It's absolutely intentional. It means you have to browse the store. And if something piques your interest -- you know you can't wait to buy it "next time" since it might not be there.
- tmoertel 3y ago
  What it means is that I just buy it on Amazon rather than wasting my time to see if my local Costco has it in stock.
  - fmajid 3y ago
    Except with Amazon I always worry if it’s a Chinese counterfeit that is going to burn down my house, whereas Costco only carries curated, top-notch items.
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  Costco has been trying to get adoption of their online selling platform, but their lack of real-time inventory is a massive impediment. I tried to use it a couple of times but it ends up being an endless back and forth with a picker who is trying to offer up substitutes for everything. Just gave up on it. Apparently Costco plans a fully separate online order picking area in one of their new massive warehouses. With that they won't have the uncertainty of shrinkage (Costco has a serious problem with theft), and of course the amount of inventory that is moving around the store in people's buggies. I don't think there is any intention to it, but it's just a legacy remnant of being a very successful B&M company where they would periodically do an inventory and figure out where they actually stand.
  - rexf 3y ago
    Shopping at Costco is frustrating. It's fine for grocery staples (dairy, fruit, veggies, etc). But when it comes finding specific items in stock (and which aisle in the store), Target and Walmart are way ahead of Costco. Ordering something at Target for Order Pickup is very straightforward and convenient. For Costco, I guess they don't want you to just order 1-2 items for order pickup and be on your way. Not to mention, the parking lot situation at Costco is a major turnoff to going.
JHorse 3y ago
Towards the end of the page it summarizes > For 40 years, Costco has succeeded with a simple formula: reinvest merchandising profits into lower prices and better products Significant enough investment in tech infrastructure to get it caught up to what might be considered reasonable seems to go against that principle.
bombcar 3y ago
The number of very large retailers who can't give accurate inventory counts is hilariously high. Even the ones that do try fail spectacularly, in all directions - I've found that when you see "limited stock" or "none available" you have a chance of finding anywhere from -5 to 50 items. And yes, that means sometimes you will carry an item into the store and it will mystically disappear.
- Matheus28 3y ago
  Isn’t shrinkage a big problem in getting an accurate number? Unless you’re recounting everything everyday, I’d assume it’d always be off
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    I would guess that theft is a pretty minimal factor her. Costco sizes and checking receipts, must severely limit this compared to other stores.
    - starttoaster 3y ago
      From my observations of working in retail, a lot of people will just blatantly walk out with things knowing the average employee can't touch them. People that steal from stores as a career do not care in the slightest. They're confident in their craft, knowing employees are watching and aware of them. They just walk on out. The average teenager that just steals because they think being a klepto is cool would probably be deterred by the door watchers though, yeah. But working in retail, probably a factor bigger than shrinkage is just people picking things up, and throwing it at the back of a shelf in a different aisle. Either they're saving it for a return visit, or they don't want it anymore and are too lazy to bring it back to its shelf. These are just my observations. I think we're down a rabbit hole of assuming the problem anyway. The main problem with Costco is probably just that they don't have a system for counting individual items, since most things in the store are just wheeled out on pallets and dropped somewhere.
      - 3y ago
RajT88 3y ago
Costco is great. I don't love losing track of my wife and having to conduct a search pattern to find her again. The prices are good. Line of sight: C-
- Matheus28 3y ago
  Just sit on the couch near the middle of the store and send her a text. O(1)
  - dumpster_fire 3y ago
    That depends on the other person's search pattern. I did the same and got O(n^2). :( Now I just use the hotdogs as the meeting point.
    - booi 3y ago
      I see what you did there ;)
      - RajT88 3y ago
        I don't think there's a clever joke there. The place you buy hotdogs is always, meticulously, placed after checkout. It may well be where they planned lost husbands to congregate.
cobertos 3y ago
I would think that if all your markup goes to warehouse and employees (operating costs) and the membership is all "pure profit", there's not a lot of money left over for R&D or tech upgrades without hurting your own margin. At least if you take the article at face value in the simplicity of it's explanation. I imagine it's more complex than that
kjkjadksj 3y ago
They can give you inventory though? Maybe it depends on the class of product though. When I tire or battery shop and they don’t have it they print me a list of other locations and quantities in stock.
ZeroSolstice 3y ago
I would venture the reasoning for this is that the system that handles inventory was never designed with external customers in mind. Most inventory tracking is done at the register/PoS when the purchase is made. The inventory is automatically tallied all day long as items are purchased and returned. At the end of the day a manifest is built and sent out for the next delivery truck. These systems, at least when I dealt with them, were mostly managed by IBM AS/400's which weren't built with the Internet in mind. The physical inventory is a financial/accounting compliance item to reconcile what the system thinks it has and what is in the store, related to insurance coverage. Costco tends to order items at wholesale while the price is advantageous in order to pass on the savings which means items aren't going to be located in the same area thus no real need for a map. I would venture since freezers and bakeries are permanent fixtures along with the long-term regular items they purchase it gives the "illusion" that things are kept in specific locations. I don't know how much stock I would put in the idea of the "Ikea" method for Costco as they have returns, membership, pharmacy, eye glasses, and the food court all relatively towards the front which are areas that people come to Costco frequently for. If it was the "Ikea method" they would all be in the back of the store.
- jfim 3y ago
  > I don't know how much stock I would put in the idea of the "Ikea" method for Costco as they have returns, membership, pharmacy, eye glasses, and the food court all relatively towards the front which are areas that people come to Costco frequently for. If it was the "Ikea method" they would all be in the back of the store. Do people really go to those parts of the store often? The fridges with fresh food, rotisserie chicken, and items like laundry soap and toilet paper are all the way at the back, which typically are the bulk of my cart. The stuff that's close to the door is typically TVs, vitamins, and toothpaste.
  - ZeroSolstice 3y ago
    I'm sure there are a few different store layout concepts over time. However you don't need a membership at Costco to eat at the food court or use the pharmacy, purchase alcohol in some states so if we applied the "Ikea" model those would be in the back to have someone "see" all the things they are missing by not being a member. For the paper towels, toilet paper, drinks they are probably regularly stocked items which if you were unloading tucks full of them you wouldn't want to be moving huge quantities all the way to the front of the store. Lastly, i'm sure its also a combination of flow control. Get everyone to the back of the store then filter toward the front building some buffers in line queue volume and getting bunched up in one single area. If you walk in the door and thats where the paper towels, toilet paper, milk, etc is then just getting in the store would be a problem. All speculation of course, but to me the "Ikea" model didn't seem to fit.
whoopsie 3y ago
They’ve wasted about ~$100M and three years to build an iPad KYC membership app to replace some of the AS/400 functions. It still hasn’t launched because it’s a fuck up from database to client. Until they hire from outside, their IT will always be shitty.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

I agree, but the fact is probably that they don't want you to know. They want you to have to show up and end up buying stuff. They also continually rearrange their stores for no apparent reason, so you're wandering around looking for the same item you bought two weeks ago. I like Costco, but have considered abandoning it because I'm sick of staple items I've bought for years there just... disappearing. You drive over there and start scouring the aisles for, say, brown rice. NOPE. They just don't have it anymore. And in many cases it's KIRKLAND products. I understand that a supply of something might temporarily dry up, but then I wish Costco would replace it with the same thing from another supplier at full price if need be. Then at least I can get my shopping done without driving all over town. If I'm going to have to do that, screw it; I'll just go to the regular grocery store.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
If you want brown rice in bulk for cheap, have you considered immigrant stores? I ask because I used to go to Makro (the Central European membership-based wholesale chain) for rice, but then I learned that shops serving Indian Subcontinent and Vietnamese diasporas offered rice and other nice things in bulk for prices comparable to that mainstream wholesaler.
fouc 3y ago
KIRKLAND is Costco's brand, it's a white label of a consistent reliable product. Your favorite brown rice brand could've ended up appearing as a kirkland product. I'm surprised at the shortage of brown rice though, last time I went into Costco I was amazed at the sheer number of gluten free, keto friendly, organic friendly etc products.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The most obvious case of that is the KIRKLAND tortilla chips, they don't even try to hide who makes them. https://images.costcobusinessdelivery.com/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=12028466&itemId=44004&recipeName=680&viewId=1 https://images.costcobusinessdelivery.com/ImageDelivery/imag...
  - hyperbovine 3y ago
    The organic Costco tortilla chips are much better. No idea who makes them but it’s definitely not Mission.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Op is saying Kirkland brands disappear too. I’ve experienced this as well with their wines.
bombcar 3y ago
Costco staples aren't necessarily your staples; there are certain products that Costco has continually had in stock for more than the 20+ years I've been wandering the aisles in search of the Arc of the Covenant (I'm certain it's somewhere in there). But other things that look like stapes can come and go, some seasonally, some after a few years. Costco is a very "go first" store - you go there, get what you can, and then flesh everything else out at some other store that will keep things in stock even when they get pricey. Costco is also not the cheapest, not by far, but they are the most consistent. Butter and soda are two of the most noticeable for me, you can easily beat Costco on both, butter because local producers often supply local stores cheaper, and soda because it's a loss-leader in many places. There are others, find them!
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Who thinks of buying butter at Costco? Who would need that much butter to begin with? There are definitely some items I don't buy at costco simply because I don't need that volume of food.
  - not_the_fda 3y ago
    Butter freezes very well. Stock up and you always have some.
  - adave 3y ago
    Families, people who bake or meal prep.Ever tried making ghee, requires a lot of butter.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Four pounds of butter isn't that much if you do any cooking, or if you cook in butter instead of oil, etc. I have ten pounds of butter, none of it Costco (the local gas station sometimes goes nuts on sale). Reminds me of: > The Costcos don’t want you to know this but the butters at the gas station are cheaper you can take them home I have 458 pounds of butter.
crooked-v 3y ago
Kirkland-brand stuff is generally relabeled products from various manufacturers, and usually picked from top-tier stuff; while the details are usually kept quiet, people have matched up 1-to-1 equivalents with other, more expensive products.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  A co-worker who once worked sales for a food distributor explained this to me. A term of art if one is interested: “private label”.
graton 3y ago
Not brown rice, but I guess there is a shortage and now hoarding of rice happening[1]. India has supposedly banned the export of non-basmati white rice. I guess this could impact brown rice supplies if people who can't get white rice switch to brown rice. Not too hard to hoard rice. It doesn't require refrigeration and can be stored for a long time. Like toilet paper! [1] https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/people-hoarding-bags-rice-indians-us-rush-stores-after-govt-export-ban-180127 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/people-hoarding-bags-r...
ZeroSolstice 3y ago
Its a wholesale club. Replacing an item at full price would be the complete opposite purpose of the store and membership. Its not about the available supply of a product, its about Costco using its purchasing power to buy the product at a cheaper rate in bulk. If the supplier changes the price that item it has to be re-evaluated.[1][2] "If Costco feels the wholesale price of any individual product is too high, they will refuse to stock the product. For example, in November 2009, Costco announced that it would stop selling Coca-Cola products because the soft-drink maker refused to lower its wholesale prices.[96] Costco resumed selling Coca-Cola products the following month.[1]" Info on Kirkland Signature[3] information. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Kirkland_Signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Kirkland_Signature [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20091216131039/http://www.ajc.com/business/coke-returns-to-costco-236727.html https://web.archive.org/web/20091216131039/http://www.ajc.co... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/05/business/costco-kirkland-signature/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/05/business/costco-kirkland-sign...

foo92691 3y ago

> How is it possible that they cannot give me an accurate inventory of the items in the stores near me? It's absolutely intentional. It means you have to browse the store. And if something piques your interest -- you know you can't wait to buy it "next time" since it might not be there.

tmoertel 3y ago
What it means is that I just buy it on Amazon rather than wasting my time to see if my local Costco has it in stock.
- fmajid 3y ago
  Except with Amazon I always worry if it’s a Chinese counterfeit that is going to burn down my house, whereas Costco only carries curated, top-notch items.
llm_nerd 3y ago
Costco has been trying to get adoption of their online selling platform, but their lack of real-time inventory is a massive impediment. I tried to use it a couple of times but it ends up being an endless back and forth with a picker who is trying to offer up substitutes for everything. Just gave up on it. Apparently Costco plans a fully separate online order picking area in one of their new massive warehouses. With that they won't have the uncertainty of shrinkage (Costco has a serious problem with theft), and of course the amount of inventory that is moving around the store in people's buggies. I don't think there is any intention to it, but it's just a legacy remnant of being a very successful B&M company where they would periodically do an inventory and figure out where they actually stand.
- rexf 3y ago
  Shopping at Costco is frustrating. It's fine for grocery staples (dairy, fruit, veggies, etc). But when it comes finding specific items in stock (and which aisle in the store), Target and Walmart are way ahead of Costco. Ordering something at Target for Order Pickup is very straightforward and convenient. For Costco, I guess they don't want you to just order 1-2 items for order pickup and be on your way. Not to mention, the parking lot situation at Costco is a major turnoff to going.

JHorse 3y ago

Towards the end of the page it summarizes > For 40 years, Costco has succeeded with a simple formula: reinvest merchandising profits into lower prices and better products Significant enough investment in tech infrastructure to get it caught up to what might be considered reasonable seems to go against that principle.

bombcar 3y ago

The number of very large retailers who can't give accurate inventory counts is hilariously high. Even the ones that do try fail spectacularly, in all directions - I've found that when you see "limited stock" or "none available" you have a chance of finding anywhere from -5 to 50 items. And yes, that means sometimes you will carry an item into the store and it will mystically disappear.

Matheus28 3y ago
Isn’t shrinkage a big problem in getting an accurate number? Unless you’re recounting everything everyday, I’d assume it’d always be off
- nickpeterson 3y ago
  I would guess that theft is a pretty minimal factor her. Costco sizes and checking receipts, must severely limit this compared to other stores.
  - starttoaster 3y ago
    From my observations of working in retail, a lot of people will just blatantly walk out with things knowing the average employee can't touch them. People that steal from stores as a career do not care in the slightest. They're confident in their craft, knowing employees are watching and aware of them. They just walk on out. The average teenager that just steals because they think being a klepto is cool would probably be deterred by the door watchers though, yeah. But working in retail, probably a factor bigger than shrinkage is just people picking things up, and throwing it at the back of a shelf in a different aisle. Either they're saving it for a return visit, or they don't want it anymore and are too lazy to bring it back to its shelf. These are just my observations. I think we're down a rabbit hole of assuming the problem anyway. The main problem with Costco is probably just that they don't have a system for counting individual items, since most things in the store are just wheeled out on pallets and dropped somewhere.
    - 3y ago

RajT88 3y ago

Costco is great. I don't love losing track of my wife and having to conduct a search pattern to find her again. The prices are good. Line of sight: C-

Matheus28 3y ago
Just sit on the couch near the middle of the store and send her a text. O(1)
- dumpster_fire 3y ago
  That depends on the other person's search pattern. I did the same and got O(n^2). :( Now I just use the hotdogs as the meeting point.
  - booi 3y ago
    I see what you did there ;)
    - RajT88 3y ago
      I don't think there's a clever joke there. The place you buy hotdogs is always, meticulously, placed after checkout. It may well be where they planned lost husbands to congregate.

cobertos 3y ago

I would think that if all your markup goes to warehouse and employees (operating costs) and the membership is all "pure profit", there's not a lot of money left over for R&D or tech upgrades without hurting your own margin. At least if you take the article at face value in the simplicity of it's explanation. I imagine it's more complex than that

kjkjadksj 3y ago

They can give you inventory though? Maybe it depends on the class of product though. When I tire or battery shop and they don’t have it they print me a list of other locations and quantities in stock.

ZeroSolstice 3y ago

I would venture the reasoning for this is that the system that handles inventory was never designed with external customers in mind. Most inventory tracking is done at the register/PoS when the purchase is made. The inventory is automatically tallied all day long as items are purchased and returned. At the end of the day a manifest is built and sent out for the next delivery truck. These systems, at least when I dealt with them, were mostly managed by IBM AS/400's which weren't built with the Internet in mind. The physical inventory is a financial/accounting compliance item to reconcile what the system thinks it has and what is in the store, related to insurance coverage. Costco tends to order items at wholesale while the price is advantageous in order to pass on the savings which means items aren't going to be located in the same area thus no real need for a map. I would venture since freezers and bakeries are permanent fixtures along with the long-term regular items they purchase it gives the "illusion" that things are kept in specific locations. I don't know how much stock I would put in the idea of the "Ikea" method for Costco as they have returns, membership, pharmacy, eye glasses, and the food court all relatively towards the front which are areas that people come to Costco frequently for. If it was the "Ikea method" they would all be in the back of the store.

jfim 3y ago
> I don't know how much stock I would put in the idea of the "Ikea" method for Costco as they have returns, membership, pharmacy, eye glasses, and the food court all relatively towards the front which are areas that people come to Costco frequently for. If it was the "Ikea method" they would all be in the back of the store. Do people really go to those parts of the store often? The fridges with fresh food, rotisserie chicken, and items like laundry soap and toilet paper are all the way at the back, which typically are the bulk of my cart. The stuff that's close to the door is typically TVs, vitamins, and toothpaste.
- ZeroSolstice 3y ago
  I'm sure there are a few different store layout concepts over time. However you don't need a membership at Costco to eat at the food court or use the pharmacy, purchase alcohol in some states so if we applied the "Ikea" model those would be in the back to have someone "see" all the things they are missing by not being a member. For the paper towels, toilet paper, drinks they are probably regularly stocked items which if you were unloading tucks full of them you wouldn't want to be moving huge quantities all the way to the front of the store. Lastly, i'm sure its also a combination of flow control. Get everyone to the back of the store then filter toward the front building some buffers in line queue volume and getting bunched up in one single area. If you walk in the door and thats where the paper towels, toilet paper, milk, etc is then just getting in the store would be a problem. All speculation of course, but to me the "Ikea" model didn't seem to fit.

whoopsie 3y ago

They’ve wasted about ~$100M and three years to build an iPad KYC membership app to replace some of the AS/400 functions. It still hasn’t launched because it’s a fuck up from database to client. Until they hire from outside, their IT will always be shitty.