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I don't think any of that is true. If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. Why? Because Costco has proven itself trustwo

I don't think any of that is true. If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. Why? Because Costco has proven itself trustworthy of a blind repeat purchase. You could trust the price you're paying is typical and fair. Amazon on the other hand...

AlexandrB 2y ago
Yes, Costco is like the opposite of the Amazon experience. Costco will only carry a few brands of any given item, but they're all generally pretty good with nothing drop-shipped from a random AliExpress vendor. Their house brand - Kirkland - is pretty good as well. It's a curated set of products with a relatively small number of SKUs vs. Amazon's flea-market-like experience.
- 39896880 2y ago
  The Kirkland house brand is often backed by one of the name brands they sell. They have quality metrics for Kirkland and they check the products regularly. If the quality dips, they swap out the provider.
  - rainbowzootsuit 2y ago
    This used to be the Sears Kenmore & Craftsman model where appliances were really Whirlpool, or Maytag, Carrier{1}. Hand tools variously came from many OEMs like SK, Plumb, Knipex, and Williams{2}. I suppose they still do, now at Lowes, but the OEM is Chinese. {1}https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/How_to_identify_who_made_your_Kenmore_appliance https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/How_to_identify_who_made_your_Ke... {2}https://forum.toolsinaction.com/topic/2118-craftsman-date-codesstampings/ https://forum.toolsinaction.com/topic/2118-craftsman-date-co...
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      The big thing with Sears Craftsman (formerly), and Costco (currently) is that the company will back the product. If I want to return a product to Costco, I have really strong confidence that they will take it back.
      - throwadobe 2y ago
        TBF to Amazon they take all my shit back on the reg
        dghlsakjg 2y ago
        Amazon will accept returns, but not like Costco will or sears did. Sears would exchange any broken craftsman tool for a new one even decades after purchase. Costco is much the same. Used, year old stuff with missing parts will gladly be refunded in full.
        bombcar 2y ago
        To be fair to Costco you have to understand that the way they do that is they just send the item back to the vendor and deduct it from the next purchase. The vendors only option is to not sell stuff to Costco anymore.
        ChoGGi 2y ago
        Which provides an incentive to the manufacturer to produce at least decent quality products.
      - xeromal 2y ago
        I've seen people drop off stained mattresses at Costco for return.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    I think it's the other way around. Kirkland takes the "B quality stock" and sells it under it's own label. This is why they have an essentially no questions asked return policy. If the quality dips it eats into this margin and the provider is back to making next to nothing on units that fail to pass their own more stringent brand QA checks.
- swozey 2y ago
  Costco really needs to get new products in or I don't think it will do well with genz and younger millennials. I hadn't been to a Costco since I was a kid so I had completely forgotten that the only stock (maybe) a few versions of specific items. I went a year or two ago thinking I'd come home with months worth of groceries and I was shocked that it STILL looked like the inside of a 1990s fridge and cabinet with such incredibly healthy options as (only) Sunny Delite and Tropicana for orange juice, massive boxes of Lays chips and cheezits and popcorn. I saw so few items that weren't basically boxes of corn syrup and sugar in some form. There's so many healthier snacks nowadays. I didn't expect a complete grocery experience but I was expecting it to have far more healthy options these days, or even just more options in general. I don't eat any of this stuff. I guess you're a costco family or not. I was a costco family as a kid and had to learn how to eat healthy after shoving soda down all day long my entire childhood. edit: Yeah I'm looking just at their juice section here and there's not a single less-sugar option just as an example https://www.costco.com/juice.html https://www.costco.com/juice.html. Although, damn, $18.99 for 24 ojs is good. But both options are so disgustingly sweet. I had a single OJ for $7 from einsteins yesterday. edit: Go down the orange juice flavor pack "Why do they all taste different" rabbit hole with me.... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mpdop/eli5_why_does_orange_juice_from_tropicana_taste/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mpdop/e...
  - meroes 2y ago
    What’s healthier than being able to buy massive amounts of high quality fish and beef and decent quality vegetables and fruit, with zero extra ingredients? Same for legumes, farro, brown rice, etc. They have tons of zero sugar drinks as well. I can’t eat that healthy via other grocery stores because it’s too expensive typically.
  - NickC25 2y ago
    if you want healthier juice....buy a juicer and make it yourself. You're never going to get healthy options from a wholesaler who buys from massive brands that are not known for healthy options. Long term, making it yourself is cheaper too. Most of the time in the juice space, anything that is designed to be shelf-stable in a warehouse is not. at. all. healthy. It's packed with preservatives and other stabilizers that are not good for you to consume. Or it has been pasteurized, which kills the vast majority of the nutrients in the liquid itself. I will say as a caveat, that the Kirkland Signature Organic Coconut Water is quite good.
noveltyaccount 2y ago
To build on the Costco analogy: for any given product category they typically only have three specific options: good, better, best. I could tell Costco bot that I need AA batteries and it would ask me if I prefer Duracell, Kirkland brand, or cheapest. I trust that either of them will be plenty good, so I would say cheapest. Amazon has a vastly different experience with thousands of indistinguishable Chinese knockoffs. I can only ask Alexa for a very specific product, otherwise I don't trust what I'll get. I use Alexa to add products to my cart, which serves as a reminder that I need to do a little more shopping from my phone or PC.
- jprete 2y ago
  To add to your point, one can't even pick out a brand-name product directly from Amazon's website and be sure of getting the real thing.
  - wnc3141 2y ago
    That's been an issue with ordering consumer electronics. I don't know if the item is refurbished, returned,or endorsed by the manufacturer warranty. I basically only order through the manufacturer or best buy these days.
    - sambaumann 2y ago
      Even when amazon shows that you're on the manufacturer store, it still may not be genuine. I bought an intel wifi card off what looked like the official intel store on amazon, but it turns out that it was an out of production model sold by a third party, but amazon showed that it was "Intel". Very confusing and frustrating if you don't know what to look for beforehand.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      Does Best Buy not resell returns?
      - qingcharles 2y ago
paxys 2y ago
> If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. The question is would it make people shop more? If you buy one set of paper towels a week, and Costco rolls out a voice interface, would you now start ordering 2 or 3? If not, what return are they getting on the billions of dollars in additional spending? In reality people would use it for a day, go "neat", and switch right back to the website or app.
- dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
  > The question is would it make people shop more? No, that's not the question. The question is would it make me shop more AT COSTCO. And yes, it would make me shift some of my purchasing from my local grocery store to Costco. Costco is a long drive that's only worth it for large trips. But if I could voice order for shipping or (even better) delivery? My local grocery with its god-awful parking lot full of blind 90-year-olds stuck in reverse would be in serious trouble.
  - paxys 2y ago
    Huh, we are not talking about building a delivery network here. The comparison is between ordering on a website/app and ordering on Alexa.
    - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
      Do you think you go pick up your Alexa orders at the store?
ashconnor 2y ago
The prices for items in my Amazon cart change multiple times per day. Until they figure out price stability for staple goods then nobody will use this. Hell I don't even use Subscribe and Save for the same reason.
- kyllo 2y ago
  This. I bought toothpaste on Amazon, used it up, and the next time I went to buy the exact same toothpaste, the price had doubled.
  - coliveira 2y ago
    Yes, they have a dark pattern where people buy a product and give good reviews, so suddenly they increase the price to benefit from that.
- bluSCALE4 2y ago
  Same, that's really why it was my sticking point for the post when in reality, getting the wrong item is a bigger issue. Lots of times I'll order something on promo only to have it substituted in the near future for either an inferior product or near double the cost.
Twirrim 2y ago
This is the inherent problem with Amazon's support of 3rd party vendors through their platform, and the general lack of quality controls. I increasingly use specific companies for purchases, because I can't guarantee that what I order through Amazon will actually be the product I wanted, or be at the quality level I'd expect. It's getting to be absolutely awful.
- rendang 2y ago
  This is interesting because you often hear Amazon treats its 3rd party sellers poorly - perhaps they are driving away the quality sellers?
- CSMastermind 2y ago
  Yeah I've largely migrated my purchases off of Amazon for exactly this reason. Checking now, I placed 83 orders last year. I've placed 3 so far this year.

AlexandrB 2y ago

Yes, Costco is like the opposite of the Amazon experience. Costco will only carry a few brands of any given item, but they're all generally pretty good with nothing drop-shipped from a random AliExpress vendor. Their house brand - Kirkland - is pretty good as well. It's a curated set of products with a relatively small number of SKUs vs. Amazon's flea-market-like experience.

39896880 2y ago
The Kirkland house brand is often backed by one of the name brands they sell. They have quality metrics for Kirkland and they check the products regularly. If the quality dips, they swap out the provider.
- rainbowzootsuit 2y ago
  This used to be the Sears Kenmore & Craftsman model where appliances were really Whirlpool, or Maytag, Carrier{1}. Hand tools variously came from many OEMs like SK, Plumb, Knipex, and Williams{2}. I suppose they still do, now at Lowes, but the OEM is Chinese. {1}https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/How_to_identify_who_made_your_Kenmore_appliance https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/How_to_identify_who_made_your_Ke... {2}https://forum.toolsinaction.com/topic/2118-craftsman-date-codesstampings/ https://forum.toolsinaction.com/topic/2118-craftsman-date-co...
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    The big thing with Sears Craftsman (formerly), and Costco (currently) is that the company will back the product. If I want to return a product to Costco, I have really strong confidence that they will take it back.
    - throwadobe 2y ago
      TBF to Amazon they take all my shit back on the reg
      - dghlsakjg 2y ago
        Amazon will accept returns, but not like Costco will or sears did. Sears would exchange any broken craftsman tool for a new one even decades after purchase. Costco is much the same. Used, year old stuff with missing parts will gladly be refunded in full.
        bombcar 2y ago
        To be fair to Costco you have to understand that the way they do that is they just send the item back to the vendor and deduct it from the next purchase. The vendors only option is to not sell stuff to Costco anymore.
        ChoGGi 2y ago
        Which provides an incentive to the manufacturer to produce at least decent quality products.
    - xeromal 2y ago
      I've seen people drop off stained mattresses at Costco for return.
- akira2501 2y ago
  I think it's the other way around. Kirkland takes the "B quality stock" and sells it under it's own label. This is why they have an essentially no questions asked return policy. If the quality dips it eats into this margin and the provider is back to making next to nothing on units that fail to pass their own more stringent brand QA checks.
swozey 2y ago
Costco really needs to get new products in or I don't think it will do well with genz and younger millennials. I hadn't been to a Costco since I was a kid so I had completely forgotten that the only stock (maybe) a few versions of specific items. I went a year or two ago thinking I'd come home with months worth of groceries and I was shocked that it STILL looked like the inside of a 1990s fridge and cabinet with such incredibly healthy options as (only) Sunny Delite and Tropicana for orange juice, massive boxes of Lays chips and cheezits and popcorn. I saw so few items that weren't basically boxes of corn syrup and sugar in some form. There's so many healthier snacks nowadays. I didn't expect a complete grocery experience but I was expecting it to have far more healthy options these days, or even just more options in general. I don't eat any of this stuff. I guess you're a costco family or not. I was a costco family as a kid and had to learn how to eat healthy after shoving soda down all day long my entire childhood. edit: Yeah I'm looking just at their juice section here and there's not a single less-sugar option just as an example https://www.costco.com/juice.html https://www.costco.com/juice.html. Although, damn, $18.99 for 24 ojs is good. But both options are so disgustingly sweet. I had a single OJ for $7 from einsteins yesterday. edit: Go down the orange juice flavor pack "Why do they all taste different" rabbit hole with me.... https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mpdop/eli5_why_does_orange_juice_from_tropicana_taste/ https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mpdop/e...
- meroes 2y ago
  What’s healthier than being able to buy massive amounts of high quality fish and beef and decent quality vegetables and fruit, with zero extra ingredients? Same for legumes, farro, brown rice, etc. They have tons of zero sugar drinks as well. I can’t eat that healthy via other grocery stores because it’s too expensive typically.
- NickC25 2y ago
  if you want healthier juice....buy a juicer and make it yourself. You're never going to get healthy options from a wholesaler who buys from massive brands that are not known for healthy options. Long term, making it yourself is cheaper too. Most of the time in the juice space, anything that is designed to be shelf-stable in a warehouse is not. at. all. healthy. It's packed with preservatives and other stabilizers that are not good for you to consume. Or it has been pasteurized, which kills the vast majority of the nutrients in the liquid itself. I will say as a caveat, that the Kirkland Signature Organic Coconut Water is quite good.

noveltyaccount 2y ago

To build on the Costco analogy: for any given product category they typically only have three specific options: good, better, best. I could tell Costco bot that I need AA batteries and it would ask me if I prefer Duracell, Kirkland brand, or cheapest. I trust that either of them will be plenty good, so I would say cheapest. Amazon has a vastly different experience with thousands of indistinguishable Chinese knockoffs. I can only ask Alexa for a very specific product, otherwise I don't trust what I'll get. I use Alexa to add products to my cart, which serves as a reminder that I need to do a little more shopping from my phone or PC.

jprete 2y ago
To add to your point, one can't even pick out a brand-name product directly from Amazon's website and be sure of getting the real thing.
- wnc3141 2y ago
  That's been an issue with ordering consumer electronics. I don't know if the item is refurbished, returned,or endorsed by the manufacturer warranty. I basically only order through the manufacturer or best buy these days.
  - sambaumann 2y ago
    Even when amazon shows that you're on the manufacturer store, it still may not be genuine. I bought an intel wifi card off what looked like the official intel store on amazon, but it turns out that it was an out of production model sold by a third party, but amazon showed that it was "Intel". Very confusing and frustrating if you don't know what to look for beforehand.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Does Best Buy not resell returns?
    - qingcharles 2y ago

paxys 2y ago

> If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. The question is would it make people shop more? If you buy one set of paper towels a week, and Costco rolls out a voice interface, would you now start ordering 2 or 3? If not, what return are they getting on the billions of dollars in additional spending? In reality people would use it for a day, go "neat", and switch right back to the website or app.

dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
> The question is would it make people shop more? No, that's not the question. The question is would it make me shop more AT COSTCO. And yes, it would make me shift some of my purchasing from my local grocery store to Costco. Costco is a long drive that's only worth it for large trips. But if I could voice order for shipping or (even better) delivery? My local grocery with its god-awful parking lot full of blind 90-year-olds stuck in reverse would be in serious trouble.
- paxys 2y ago
  Huh, we are not talking about building a delivery network here. The comparison is between ordering on a website/app and ordering on Alexa.
  - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
    Do you think you go pick up your Alexa orders at the store?

ashconnor 2y ago

The prices for items in my Amazon cart change multiple times per day. Until they figure out price stability for staple goods then nobody will use this. Hell I don't even use Subscribe and Save for the same reason.

kyllo 2y ago
This. I bought toothpaste on Amazon, used it up, and the next time I went to buy the exact same toothpaste, the price had doubled.
- coliveira 2y ago
  Yes, they have a dark pattern where people buy a product and give good reviews, so suddenly they increase the price to benefit from that.
bluSCALE4 2y ago
Same, that's really why it was my sticking point for the post when in reality, getting the wrong item is a bigger issue. Lots of times I'll order something on promo only to have it substituted in the near future for either an inferior product or near double the cost.

Twirrim 2y ago

This is the inherent problem with Amazon's support of 3rd party vendors through their platform, and the general lack of quality controls. I increasingly use specific companies for purchases, because I can't guarantee that what I order through Amazon will actually be the product I wanted, or be at the quality level I'd expect. It's getting to be absolutely awful.

rendang 2y ago
This is interesting because you often hear Amazon treats its 3rd party sellers poorly - perhaps they are driving away the quality sellers?
CSMastermind 2y ago
Yeah I've largely migrated my purchases off of Amazon for exactly this reason. Checking now, I placed 83 orders last year. I've placed 3 so far this year.