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Costco is the anti-Amazon
- scamdrill 4mo agoHighly recommend the Acquired podcast and their Costco episode if people want to dive deeper into the history of this company.
- kejaed 4mo agohttps://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco
- gorfian_robot 4mo agoyep. super good. I've recommended it a ton. the one on Trader Joe's is also excellent.
- bena 4mo agoI'm surprised e-commerce is still under 17 percent. It makes me want to check my purchasing habits to see if I'm around that mark.
- bryanlarsen 4mo agoCars & car parts, food, gas and clothes are still purchased almost exclusively in person. Those are each a massive percentage of spending. https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf
- bena 4mo agoThat tracks. I wouldn't trust e-gas either. Seriously though, I was thinking on how I had to stop and get cat litter, milk, and cereal on my way home today when I read what you posted. While I get some consumables online; pet food, filters for my odd-sized vent, and until recently Hello Fresh; I mostly buy consumables in person.
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- kulahan 4mo agoThis surprised me too. My apartment hallway has 5-10 amazon packages in it per day. I guess... everyone's just spending crazy money at home. Seeing the other comment about large purchases being made in person makes sense, but still - you can buy cars and clothes online now. 17 seems REALLY low!
- pupppet 4mo agoWhenever someone says America can do great things, I don't think of battleships, fighter jets, or AI models, I think of Costco.
- DrewADesign 4mo agoI mean, Costco is great, but I think the purest expression of American capitalism is Buc-ee’s.
- frollogaston 4mo ago[dead]
- whalesalad 4mo agoI present to you, the 8th wonder of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Pyramid
- DrewADesign 4mo agoYeah that’s pretty not bad. They just need to deposit them along the interstate system.
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- throwawaygod 4mo agoCan you explain why? Non-american here :)
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- DrewADesign 4mo agoIt’s a chain of gas stations along interstate highways, either mostly or entirely in the south. Many are contenders for, and one of them is, the world’s largest gas station— not hyperbole. One has 120 gas pumps and they do so much volume, they have a team of attendants running around outside to deal with card/pump problems. They’re open 24/7/365 and constantly have dozens of fresh, made on-site BBQ items and sides ready to go for very reasonable prices, roasted nuts and other snacky confections being made fresh constantly, plus a huge line of high quality prepackaged snacks, a full clothing store worth of merch bearing Buc-ee the beaver, and a separate convenience store that itself would make an incredible American gas station. In Florida, driving up through Georgia, the billboard advertisements start 200 miles away. Truly shocking thing is that it’s genuinely high quality (considering the venue) and reasonably priced. It’s exactly the sort of product American capitalism is supposed to produce, but almost never does. There are lots of videos on YouTube.
- frollogaston 4mo agoCostco is mostly food, clothes, furniture, other large things, and auto services, which generally you don't get from Amazon even if you aren't a Costco member. The points about less choice more apply to like Costco vs grocery stores or Walmart. And I do like Costco, similar low-choice reason I like Trader Joe's even though Costco is its own league.
- jitix 4mo agoAs per their financials it’s roughly 50-50. I personally buy groceries and household consumables for the most part apart from the occasional electronics purchase. IMO Costco’s food hits the sweet spot between high end grocery store quality and walmart level price.
- DrewADesign 4mo agoYeah I can’t get 5 different varieties of a ball bearings in the size I need delivered overnight from Costco. And for the things Costco or your local grocery store is great for, Amazon is often a far worse option. I noticed my wife was buying our toothpaste using a subscribe and save thing, so I compared it to our regular grocery store when I went shopping, and Amazon was like 20% more expensive. Great marketing on Amazon’s part getting people to assume it’s always the lowest price, but it’s often not.
- frollogaston 4mo agoThe dumbest assumption I saw Amazon baiting people into was using Chase credit card points for purchases. You'd think spending those specifically on Amazon would be more efficient than just getting cash and buying from Amazon with that cash, right? Turns out it's the other way around, and by a large amount.
- mtzaldo 4mo agoyes, I started buying with miles because Amazon was giving me more value for those than my current bank.
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- asdefghyk 4mo agoThey would be , in their own way, competing against "each other"? , with different models to get the product to customer .
- cute_boi 4mo agoI don’t know why people like Costco so much. BJ’s Wholesale is much better and offers more variety. It seems mostly suitable for carnivores. That being said their refund and the way their employees is great though. I would prefer walmart if they treat their employee better and give better pay.
- mmooss 4mo ago> To put it crudely, having someone in a Sprinter van deliver a recently-purchased toothbrush to your doorstep is simply not a universalizable action, from either a business or logistical standpoint. It is a modern feat that Amazon is capable of doing this, but that it can be done does not mean that it should, nor even that it can be done writ large. For most consumption, it is far more efficient for people to handle the “last-mile delivery” themselves by going to stores and buying a good amount of stuff when they do so. When you order your X, a van doesn't drive from Amazon's warehouse to your home and then back with only your order. The van takes a van-full (hopefully) from the warehouse, and makes many stops at many homes, businesses, etc. That seems more efficient, in terms of fuel, climate impact, etc., than each customer making a separate round trip. Is there data showing it either way?
- mc32 4mo agoIndeed true. Even more efficient is when people can wait a few days and let Amazon bundle your orders and deliver on a designated day. That said people don’t typically get in a car to buy one thing -though obviously sometimes they do. On average though their trips will be for multiple things. I still think even without using designated delivery days Amazon deliveries are more efficient than individuals going out to buy things independently.
- mmooss 4mo agoI was zeroing out the amount purchased: The comparison is the customer picks up one item vs. Amazon delivers one item, or the customer picks up 12 or 20 things vs. Amazon delivers the same amount. I'd still love to see data. The problem with environmental impact is really a consequence of subsidized energy costs, including the externalization of environmental cost. If the consumer and Amazon paid the actual cost of fuel, they would make valid economic and environmental choices and we wouldn't need to figure it out like this.
- nemomarx 4mo agoI've always wondered why I don't see passed on savings for the "amazon day" thing. It's gotta be way better for their logistics to deliver bulk orders, or pick a standardized delivery day for each neighborhood or something. Why do they only offer a single dollar of credit for choosing it?
- Backslasher 4mo agoThe part about Costco choosing to avoid the last mile shipping problem reminded me of a proverb, roughly translated as: A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it. I think it holds a lot of truth in engineering.
- mgfist 4mo agoBoth spectrums are hard. Solving last mile is really really hard, but if you do that's a huge moat (aka Amazon). If you avoid last mile, you best deliver value in some other way, which Costco does by giving you more per dollar than anyone else.
- steve_adams_86 4mo agoThey also offer some degree of curation, so your dollar goes further by volume/weight/unit on average, but also in less quantitative ways quite often. I trust what I buy from Costco, but I’ve completely stopped buying from Amazon (many years ago now) because apart from the poor value prop, I simply don’t like the quality or reliability of what’s offered.
- mullingitover 4mo agoAmazon largely being a dumb marketplace, a faster-shipping AliExpress/Temu, really makes them easy to drop if you find that shipping speed isn’t super important for those types of products. You can just go straight to the source and cut Amazon out entirely.
- whatever1 4mo agoIt’s not only a faster Temu for e-junk. It can also deliver your paper wipes and bananas in the same order. Could you just place 3 different orders to 3 different vendors? Sure. Could you just drive to the grocery for 2 bananas and then to Costco for the big discounted paper wipes? Sure. But likely you will not. Which is why Amazon pulls a Trillion in revenue.
- tonymet 4mo agoI admired Costco for installing USA-made manhole covers rather than use those made in India, which most municipalities have shifted to for lower cost. I’m probably the only person who would notice that. Sort of how Steve Jobs explained that a good carpenter cares about the backside of the dresser as much as the front, even if no customer will ever notice.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoThanks for an interesting comment! (No irony intended).
- gwbas1c 4mo ago> Even if you think it is preferable at an individual level, there are good reasons to question the social value of the logistical complexity that it necessitates. Home delivery of single-packaged items entails an entirely different cost structure than freight trucks driving to consumer-facing warehouses delivering entire pallets of goods to be driven home by customers themselves. Ok, so 100 people can all drive to the store, or one delivery truck can drive to everyone's house. (Ignoring the packaging waste for a second,) I suspect delivery of single items cuts back significantly on trips to the store.
- lynndotpy 4mo agoThose individual trips to the store are typically for more than single items, and are often incorporated into trips one would have taken anyways as part of the doing of errands.
- claw-el 4mo agoTechnically, so is the home delivery. It is usually a delivery truck full of packages for nearby addresses.
- alanbernstein 4mo agoRight, 100 trucks delivering 100 single items to 100 homes, or 100 consumers each making 1 trip to buy 100 things. It really depends on the details too much to simplify it so far.
- claw-el 4mo agoIt is more like 1 truck delivering 100 single items to 100 homes.
- alanbernstein 4mo agoNo, not if you're matching the volume of items between the two scenarios.
- 0ckpuppet 4mo agonothing I buy on amazon is available at costo
- yawnxyz 4mo agoI like the idea that Costco and Amazon are diametric opposites — for example I couldn't shop at Costco for a very very long time because I lived in the city and didn't have a car. Amazon and other delivery companies (e.g. Weee) came to the rescue. For a while I lived close enough to a Costco for a 20 minute bike, so I'd load up my gym bag full of food - even then Costco is not ideal because there's only so much you can carry (one thing of meat, one thing of eggs, some veggies). For those that think Costco are the uber-shopping experience are missing that they both provide very opposite consumer experiences. (Yes Costco has shipping, and same day shipping, but it hits different from Amazon). This is also opposite to corner store grocery systems where you can pop in at any moment to get fresh fruit, a wider choice, smaller quantities at more flexible hours etc. --- tldr - what I think I'm saying is that Costco is the perfect "suburban" purchasing experience - great if you tick the boxes that you have a big family (otherwise why do you need a 60 pack of toilet paper), a big house (where do you fit all that toilet paper), a car (to transport the toilet paper), etc. anyone who don't tick those boxes can't really take advantage of any of that - so while Costco is amazing, it definitely shouldn't be the only way to shop.
- kfarr 4mo agoAgree, Costco succeeds at externalizing last mile costs by offloading it to suburbanites who view it as a sunk cost. Similar to uber/lyft drivers doing their own fleet management.
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo agoI nodded along to much of the article, but I really think it's wrong to see this as a model for public grocery stores. The analysis is glossing over a lot of the key factors that Costco uses to make its logicstics model work. You can't buy small quantities, so the staff don't need to spend much time breaking down pallets; you're not allowed in the building without a membership, so there's little need to invest in behavior policing or loss prevention.
- fragmede 4mo ago> you're not allowed in the building without a membership I wonder why other stores like Target don't do that as well. Beyond the obvious, it just seems like the way to go.
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo agoWalmart does, under the Sam's Club brand, and there's a handful of other regional ones. Conventional wisdom is that the market reached saturation in the 90s. There's a lot of people who just don't want to pay a membership fee.
- fragmede 4mo agoJust have the fee be $0 then. Beats having the shelves be all locked up because people be stealing everything.
- furyofantares 4mo agoThis is about 80% spot on, but the last 20% fails to mention that you can avoid the in store experience if it isn't for you, and in fact get the stuff you want delivered to your door in a short period of time, using services like instacart. Costco even partners directly with instacart for same day delivery. You can use your membership to get same day delivery shopping on costco's website and they will use instacart to fulfill it for you. Or you can use instacart directly, in which case you don't even need a membership yourself.
- borski 4mo agoTrue, but at higher prices (and with delivery fees), which somewhat defeats the purpose of the cost savings at Costco.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoBut saving the cost and time of you driving there yourself, which if you're honest is probably worth the delivery fee.
- furyofantares 4mo agoSure, although personally the comparison would be to delivery from other stores.
- abawany 4mo agoYep, around 18% higher not including tip, in my estimate. HEB (local Texas grocery chain featured here a few days ago) puts in just a 3% margin for pickup or delivery (before tip.) Walmart and Sams have no special delivery/pickup margin but instead charge delivery fees that can be avoided by membership levels or order amount thresholds.
- drudoff 4mo agoThere's free 2-day shipping from Costco for purchases over $75 (at least in Seattle). It's not hard meet that requirement. Right now, I only tend to go to Costco if I need to buy refrigerated or frozen items.
- forrestthewoods 4mo agoCostco is way too damn crowded. There needs to be 2x or 3x the number of stores. It is a great deal. But an utterly miserable shopping experience.
- klvino 4mo agoComparatively, as I have both a Costco and Sam's Club memberships, the floorplans on Costco stores are much more efficient. Both stores get crowded but Sams suffers from poor design which makes traffic worse. Although, Sams does compensate with a smoother checkout experience.
- cube00 4mo agoCostco checkouts are a nightmare, a giant queue on one side reaching back to the deli while people try to "zip merge" in from the other side in several smaller queues. At one point they had the pallets at the front aligned so you could just queue behind a single register and then they changed it so the pallets at the front form a long wall facing the checkouts forcing you to join the checkout queues from either side.
- zeroonetwothree 4mo agoPart of the reason their prices are low is they are very efficient at using their total hours open. I often just get it delivered to my house to avoid the crowds though.
- pizzafeelsright 4mo agoThat's because of "them". If they weren't here. Them is a universal variable you already injected.
- rr808 4mo agoI dont like Costco, it epitomizes American over-consumption. Parking lot overflowing with oversized SUVs with people loading up oversized trolleys with food from food corporations to take back to their oversized fridges and storage basements.
- anon7000 4mo agoCostco is one of the few stores in America that attempts to give great value to consumers. Most supermarkets just don’t
- esskay 4mo agoNot sure that counters their point...or even relates to it.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoAldi seems to. I thought of them as I read about Costco, not because of the size of their stores (which are generally quite small as supermarkets go) but because of the limited choices. Aldi normally has everything I need but doesn't have a lot of choice in any individual thing. It makes shopping there feel very efficient.
- skeeter2020 4mo agoWalmart does this too, and it's one of the worst experiences/value-propositions I've ever experienced. It might be better in the US but in Canada it's expensive, poor quality and painful: pick three.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoWalmart stores are huge though, particulary the SuperWalmarts with supermarket and department store combined. Aldi is compact, maybe 4 or 5 aisles, a refrigerated section, and a frozen food section.
- TulliusCicero 4mo ago
- mschuster91 4mo ago> Amazon often negotiates delayed payment terms with suppliers, leaning on them to allow payment windows longer than the thirty-day industry norm. Oh how I would wish for this crap to be banned. By law. Simply put, at the scale of "you are even allowed to sell at large volume to Amazon, Walmart, ..." you aren't on equal footing with Amazon. You are subservient. Contract law still builds on the idea that b2b contracts are made between roughly equal parties because that was how business was done back 200 years ago, and thus there's much less legal protection than for b2c contracts. This needs to change, and the sooner the better.
- zeroonetwothree 4mo agoWhy? Then we’d have to pay more to buy stuff.
- mschuster91 4mo agoYeah, and? Redistribute all the wealth that goes to the stonk market to the people. Henry Ford figured that out a century ago - for a healthy economy, you need people to be able to afford stuff!
- fragmede 4mo agoBecause Amazon and Walmart, as the giants they are, aren't hurting for cash. If you're a small time vendor or buyer, those 30 days could be the difference between eating tonight or going hungry. Meanwhile. Amazon and Walmart could just pay it out of their reserves early and Jeff Bezos isn't going to go hungry. Also, why would prices go up?
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- lowbloodsugar 4mo agoPersonal convenience vs societal cost? Let’s have both ffs. Fucking luddites. Same kind of folks arguing against AI because it will take their shitty low paying job. No post-scarcity future for us! We want to work in debt servitude forever!
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoAmazon is the anti-Costco also. We thought about it, and it doesn't really make sense to get a Costco membership when we can lean into Prime more. It doesn't help that we live in a fairly urban area (Ballard in Seattle) and Costco's is pretty suburban. I'd much rather order some heavy stuff from Amazon to have delivered and walk to the local grocery store for everything else.
- icantevenhold 4mo agoAs someone who finds ordering groceries obscene what kind of heavy stuff do you get that you need to order in?
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoGenerally the bulk things I would have gotten at Costco, which isn't much for our family, so mostly protein drinks, olive oil, and so on. They come in pretty big cases, and it definitely seems like the heaviest thing the Amazon driver is delivering that day. We still drive to the Chinese grocery for a big bag of rice every once in awhile.
- icantevenhold 4mo agoOk that makes sense to me, so you do this once or twice per year? I used to buy a lot of olive oil in canisters in Italy when on vacation. Just can’t match the quality with what you get on the open market here.
- random3 4mo agoYou can order from Costco on Instacart here in the Bay Area. This said, there's a lot of quality stuff at Costco (besides their huge wines collection) that you can't find anywhere else.
- gleenn 4mo agoA major upside to Costco is you can actually see stuff and you also can walk out of the store same-day. Also I never ever worry about the counterfeit and/or low-quality crap you inevitably get from Amazon. And if Costco sells me something crappy, I drag it back in and don't even have to start up the printer (it's a zombie at this point). Costco has a running rule that they never charge above 10% in profits so I know I'm getting a good deal too.
- earljwagner 4mo agoThere's another reason for Costco's appeal and trust among members: Kirkland Signature. Costco mandates that any KS product must be at least 10% better in quality than the leading national brand it replaces and/or cost less. That further helps simplify shopping and decision-making and resolves the paradox of choice. Instead of having to sort through a wide variety of unknown brands on Amazon, they just go with KS. https://www.thestreet.com/retail/costco-reveals-why-kirkland-keeps-beating-name-brands https://www.thestreet.com/retail/costco-reveals-why-kirkland...
- khurs 4mo agoAll the comments appear to be US centric, but Costco is also in other countries. So to tell you about the UK: Here membership is unusual in that it isn't technically open to everyone, it's business and certain professions: https://www.costco.co.uk/membership https://www.costco.co.uk/membership but in reality anyone who wants to join can find a way. Also no mention in the article of non-food. In UK Costco is known for special offers on electrical and white good and more. And cheap car tyres iirc In the UK not everyone drives like USA and Costco's are few and far between, so that limits who shops there. So a niche player compared to the Supermarkets for consumer shopping. And people also have smaller homes compared to USA and smaller families maybe (or smaller portion sizes...!), and Costco here is more geared towards selling in bulk, and to corner shops and other small businesses. It's more of a hybrid Wholesaler.
- doginasuit 4mo agoThat's interesting, what do people have to do to get membership?
- fmajid 4mo agoHave a limited company or be in a baroque list of occupations: https://www.costco.co.uk/membership-goldstar-questions https://www.costco.co.uk/membership-goldstar-questions
- jephs 4mo agoWhat on earth is the point of limiting membership to such random and specific groups?
- saratogacx 4mo agoGovernment Regulations[1] > According to the Costco U.K. website, memberships to those stores are only available to certain groups of people. Since the store is classified as a wholesaler, this complies with the U.K.'s wholesale store laws. These dictate that wholesale stores are only accessible to those working for select business sectors. [1] https://www.thedailymeal.com/1483679/costco-uk-membership-requirements/ https://www.thedailymeal.com/1483679/costco-uk-membership-re...
- adi_kurian 4mo agoIf the stats in this are true, Amazon’s warehouse workforce turns over at 25 times the rate of Costco’s workforce, for almost the same wage. That is remarkable.
- ggm 4mo agoTime and motion/Taylorism is an anti pattern for staff retention. There is more to work than pay. Being humiliated and hassled over pee breaks for instance.
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- vayup 4mo agoAnd yet, Amazon Prime is inspired by Costco membership.
- cisrockandroll 4mo agoI would love to hear more about Costco's engineering culture. The fact they are still running/modernizing/supporting AS400 infrastructure and RPGLE applications is remarkable. I have to imagine that they have a unique devops model internally to keep that alive; especially facing a dwindling talent market.
- mattmaroon 4mo agoCostcos tech stack is frankly unconscionably bad. It’s the one way in which Sam’s Club crushes them. There’s no reason they couldn’t do basically all of the good things mentioned in this article plus have a functional website, let me scan and pay with my phone in store, have a handheld scanner at each register, etc.
- ssl-3 4mo ago> a functional website It works for me. Am I holding it wrong? > let me scan and pay with my phone in store That's already beginning to happen: https://www.cheapism.com/costco-scan-and-go-technology/ https://www.cheapism.com/costco-scan-and-go-technology/ > have a handheld scanner at each register I've seen handheld scanners at each Costco register that I've ever paid attention to.
- mattmaroon 4mo agoCostcos give a scanner to the person running the self checkouts, not to the customer, so you have to wait for them to come over. They are very attentive usually but still. (Perhaps this isn’t the case at all of them but I’ve seen it several times in various states.) Their website/app makes it impossible to just see what’s in store at what price. Go search for coca cola and I see the price to have it delivered (much higher than in store) and a link to instacart. No pickup options or even prices. On Sams Club’s website I can see that in store price and order it for pickup. Again, Costco could keep the things we all like and just have basic 2018 functionality, it isn’t hard.
- bell-cot 4mo agoVery few people are shopping at Costco for their tech stack. And maybe it's just their talented/experienced/numerous staff, but my in-store experience with their tech is as good as it gets. Stuff just works, and works quickly.
- mattmaroon 4mo agoOk, load the app and search for Heinz ketchup and tell me what it would cost to go get some in store. You can’t. You can only get delivery pricing. They don’t have the basic functionality every store has had for a decade. Go to self check-out and grab a scanner for your heavy items, which they sell many of. You can’t, they don’t have them, you have to wait for the attendant to get to you with it. (They’re generally good at their job but it’s still annoying if you’re in a rush.) Sam’s Club is as good as it gets tech-wise, in-store and out. They even have AI that allows the exit door receipt checker to skip checking people so you don’t get stuck in a line waiting for someone to verify you paid for everything.
- bilsbie 4mo agoSurprisingly Amazon is actually pretty constrained. There are usually only 3-10 versions of a given product but sold by hundreds of different resellers. When I was shopping for a water distiller there was only one large one but branded for ten different Chinese companies. (And They all had the same dangerous flaw where water could spill on the electrical plug.)
- tom5ow 4mo ago[flagged]
- christina97 4mo agoThis post seems quite far fetched. Amazon is well aware of the paradox of choice, and the vast majority of UI changes I have seen recently are exactly those that guide and reinforce you to buy one option, without the decision paralysis. Items are not homogeneous, and it is obvious that they try to concentrate purchases to a smaller set of SKUs to reap the same benefits as Costco. It’s simply that Amazon can additionally support the long tail of SKUs with a heterogeneous warehouse system (and heterogeneous profit margins). On the delivery side: US suburbia is just in general not a sustainable solution. Delivery is just one way in which it bites. Somewhere like NYC, the amortized delivery cost (internalized or externalized) is very low (and opposite to Costcos which require a drive to an inconvenient location). The bit about agents doing your shopping is falling for the same trap as crypto people thinking NFTs will kill Ticketmaster. These have never been technical problems: the APIs don’t exist for nontechnical reasons.
- titanomachy 4mo agoSomehow Costco managed to get their store right in the middle of downtown Vancouver. They put it under some condo towers.
- Grombobulous 4mo agoThat sounds like they might have leveraged housing development incentives. In a lot of cities with high housing costs you get tax breaks for investing in residential properties. I don’t know if Vancouver has any of these off the top of my head. And what you’re saying is true as a generality, that big box stores often fit in at least some parking in dense areas. I have found that grocery stores and big box stores do the most parking subsidies especially when they expect their customers to be buying a lot of bulky items. They seem to frequently have free or deeply discounted validated parking in underground garages. Maybe not in Manhattan or anything but in many other large cities with high land value in downtown areas.
- thijson 4mo agoI know that I trust products from Costco being good quality, I'm less likely to regret my purchase decision. I've been burned with stuff I got on Amazon being crappy.
- Grombobulous 4mo agoI think the article misses discussing Costco’s growing online business. There are a ton of Costco items that you can only buy online or that are sold in a different way online, and they’re often doing so with included shipping very similar to Amazon’s business model. The shipping is slower, but it’s an interesting part of their business, and I encourage Costco members to try it out. You’d be surprised at the quantity of things you really don’t need to go to the warehouse for.
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- hammock 4mo ago“Costco is the anti-Amazon” Haha OK Just wait until Amazon turns some of its warehouses into Costco-style retail stores…
- arealaccount 4mo agoOh man we went to Costco today to purchase a membership, was finally convinced after all of the $1.50 hot dog memes It was a used car tier hard sell to get the “executive” membership, after saying no a half dozen times literally everything we said was an invite to highly recommended the damn executive card. Then they offer $20 back on your membership if you sign up for auto pay (and install the costco app on your phone and give up your email and phone). But you need a card, and it can’t be Amex, Mastercard, or Discover, so of course the very highly recommendation is to get the Costco Visa. It has no annual fee and you get %2 back, and even if you don’t spend enough you'll get a minimum of $65 back, which is the difference between the regular card and the executive. So the executive card is basically a no brainer. Well we couldn’t get the $20 back coupon and at this point im feeling like Costco isn’t as customer friendly as the internet says, but it turns out we can actually use discover (debit only) on the phone app. Even though honestly the executive card pays for itself, also the Costco visa has no annual fee you can just get it and never use it. I ended up getting the plain gold star card, got some free samples and was thoroughly impressed with the $1.50 hot dog. But I think I hate this store, onboarding was such a shady process.
- _RPM 4mo agoYou can sign up online, which you should have done, the guy you were taking was doing his job.
- arealaccount 4mo agoI understand the guy and his manager he called over for the hard sell were doing their jobs, that’s exactly the point.
- brailsafe 4mo agoMy impression of Costco's selection is that it's the retail distillation of car-centric suburbs, despite it not being exclusively those people who shop there. The happy suburbanite cares about convenience and quantity above all else, from what I can tell anyway. They don't really have a varied sense of taste, they just want stuff, and they want easy access to that stuff. They like a "haul" that they do once a month, and buy vehicles that will fit it. For me, I'll join a friend who has a membership from time to time, but I'll only get chicken breasts, a rotisserie, maybe frozen fruit if the price is competitive, and... soap; everything else is just noise and/or extra calories that I wouldn't have bought anywhere else but happens to fit in the industrial-size cart and usually isn't a substantially better price, or it's just not a good offering. I could buy greek Yogurt cups, but really I don't want that brand or the lemon or lime ones, so I'm paying marginally less to enjoy half of them. I could buy salsa, but unless it's a party, I have no need for a year's supply. It's just a lot and it's probably kind of agreeable. Also the blankets, they're alright. The small selection of things I get are the few items—as the probably AI author suggests—that I'd either buy anyway in smaller quantities or just don't have opinions about. The one time I actually did have a membership, I'd find myself working backwards from it to justify to expense. I let Costco borrow my money and to get it back I'd need to exploit their good deals, but ultimately they just made a killing off of me filling my cart with arbitrary bullshit stuff.
- whall6 4mo agoAgree with you on most angles but with a twist: the suburbanite should be seen not as the adult shopping, but as the children that the suburbanite is most likely shopping for. I’m certainly not going to be picky about the Greek yogurt when half of it will end up uneaten (or on the floor).
- frollogaston 4mo agoCostco stuff is quantity and quality
- emtel 4mo agoI’m guessing you don’t have kids. My membership pays for itself just for the savings on string cheese alone. Same for eggs.
- kittikitti 4mo agoI think Costco is good, but it's vastly overhyped. Comparing the two is just ridiculous. Having only 4,000 SKU's and thinking less choice is good is brainrotted. Costco shoppers are annoyingly conformist. Costco is an exploitative mega-corporation and Amazon is too. Ask a Costco enthusiast and they will say they do it out of the goodness of their heart. It's really annoying and makes me completely avoid Costco. Please, tell me again how you think Costco hotdogs were invented by Jesus Christ and how you love guzzling down their wieners.
- VladVladikoff 4mo agoI really don’t understand why people are so passionate about Costco. Every time I try to shop for items there, it is always cheaper elsewhere. Perhaps this is just Canada vs USA, but Canadians are extremely passionate about Costco too. A good example I saw recently was toilet paper. Their cheapest 30 pack was $30, when I can get basically the same product for $20 at Food Basics. But it’s not just one item, it’s every item in the store, there is always a better deal elsewhere. I honestly believe that people are suffering from mass delusion, and thinking they are getting a good deal “because bulk” without actually doing price comparisons. The only exception I’ve ever found for this was car tires.
- narag 4mo agoI just realized that I use more different kind of stores and transportation to shop than ever. I walk for groceries, ride the motorbike to malls for monthly or yearly buys like clothing or light electronics, take the metro to specialized stores for heavier items and buy online hard-to-find or high-margin-elsewhere stuff. Also online buys are seldom delivered home, but to a nearby convenience store because work hours match delivery hours. Thinking of changing this distribution is highly disturbing because of time wasted, much more limited options and huge price differences. Of course YMMV depending on location, Madrid here... the world the article describes is totally alien to me.
- culi 4mo agoI've rarely lived somewhere where I can't bike to a grocery store within 10 minutes. It's definitely something I look out for when picking a place to live. I can't imagine having to drive every single time and I dread the few times I do have to get in a car to get something
- hmxrye 4mo agoAWS enterprise VA-1 outage regularly secure DNS. B. F. Skinner's Utopian Vision: Behind and Beyond Walden Two [1]:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2778813/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2778813/
- dhosek 4mo agoCostco is also an anti-Amazon in that they treat their workers and their suppliers well.
- sholladay 4mo agoI understand the appeal, but let’s be honest. Costco is designed for rich people who think they are frugal. You drive your big SUV there to load up on months worth of food and goods, which you can only do because you have a big house with enough storage for all of it. And who cares if some of it goes bad because you can always go back for more and hey it was so cheap anyway. You even pay a membership for the privilege.
- whall6 4mo agoI’m not sure you have to be that rich to pay the $300 per year membership to buy food at loss leading prices. The bulk sizing of everything at Costco is overblown anyways. I wish it was bigger
- AstroJetson 4mo agoMembership is only $65 a year and I save more than that on diapers. So it pretty easy to cover the fee.
- cavoirom 4mo agoI think average familiy could do better at financing so that they can affort to plan for 1 month or more on groceries. For me, it's not about rich, it's about planning, I must know exactly what I need before I go there. It save time and but stability, I have at least 1 month buffer on common goods shortage.
- probablycorey 4mo ago46% of Costco shoppers are middle class (earning $40k-$125k) and 33% are upper class and according to market research companies. Membership is $65. You don't need an SUV to shop at Costco, it is easy to load the groceries into a sedan.
- kulahan 4mo agoIf you think "has an SUV and can buy food in advance" == "rich", then the billionaires truly have scrambled your brain.
- moviet 4mo agoHas Amazon ever tried a curated, low-SKU section of the website? I guess that’s just the “Overall Pick.” For that is a large appeal of Costco. If I need a blanket, I can visit a Costco and buy their softest blanket with no hesitation. It will be around $20. If it’s bad, they have the most generous return policy.
- hahahaa 4mo agoBiz idea for you. Make that as an external site using Amazon associate.
- pandaman 4mo agoCostco is not only curating the selection: most products you buy there are created specifically for Costco, even if it's not the "Kirkland" brand, it's an SKU you cannot find elsewhere. Amazon would need to figure out the process of creating such products first and I see it's been trying: there are "amazon basics" brand products and even house brands ("Denali", I think, is Amazon's tool brand). The problem is that unlike Costco, Amazon cannot offer much to the suppliers of such products. Costco gives a limited shelf space in their high traffic stores in exchange for a discount and warranty. What can Amazon? Only thing I see is "amazon basics" being a bit more valuable than the brands like GOOLOO or MEPTY.
- James_K 4mo agoSad that we don't see more high praise of simple things. Not exciting enough, I guess.
- aabajian 4mo agoI don't think anyone has mentioned the obvious middle ground: PO Boxes at USPS post offices. Nearly every town and city in the USA has a post office. Instead of driving packages to individual's homes or having businesses deliver to their specific warehouses, the middle ground is to deliver everything to the USPS offices.
- toast0 4mo agoUPS, Fedex, and Amazon all use USPS for some last mile deliveries. It's usually a little less when using UPS and Fedex; not sure if Amazon bills less for it because I use prime shipping so the cost is hidden.
- cube00 4mo agoIt embodies the precise opposite of everything imagined by the e-commerce futurists Costco do plenty of online only offers, partner with Doordash/Instacart, even sell holiday packages so I'm not sure how the author arrives at the conclusion they're at the "precise opposite of everything imagined by the e-commerce" The only precise opposite is that they're still paying IBM goodness knows how much to stay on their AS/400 architecture.
- hahahaa 4mo agoCostco should aquire Hetzner :)
- davidk42 4mo agoHate Costco. Buying from Amazon
- diogenescynic 4mo agoCostco works hard to charge you less. Amazon works hard to charge you more.
- psyclobe 4mo agoForget Costco and Amazon it's all about Walmart. They are killing it with local from store delivery and they are more local then Costco. They will win at the end of the day.
- heohk 4mo agoThis absolutely. Walmart+ is amazing.
- rcleveng 4mo agothis article sounds like a poorly AI written of a mashup of the https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco and CNN news article on the Mamdani bodega killing grocery store (which sounds super expensive for the value it provides)
- moomoo11 4mo ago130+ iq move is to order daily stuff from amazon, and same day costco delivery when you need stuff in bulk
- heohk 4mo agoCostco products have fallen off big time. Every time the long time staple items are New and Improved, they are materially worse (literally).
- bell-cot 4mo ago> That said, there is no question that, in a better society than the one we have, key parts of Amazon’s operation would be retained for offering functions that contribute to the social good. The capacity to deliver prescription medicines same-day to the elderly is a genuine social contribution. You know you're old when... 1920's-era "kid on bicycle" tech could do that. Ditto any healthy local social network. I do it occasionally for less-healthy family & friends. Or - how many housebound elderly folks are already using DoorDash & similar? Bigger picture, the best practice would be a dedicated service for this. Staffed by Nurse Aides, who interacted enough with their clients to notice developing problems early. Because compared to occasionally cycling old folks through the hospital - for "easily treated, if noticed sooner" conditions - that would probably have a negative cost.
- amelius 4mo agoOk, let them both commoditize their complement.
- newsoftheday 4mo agoWe are probably fortunate, we live 5 minutes from one Costco, 6 minutes from a second one and 17 minutes from a third. My wife visits Costco every week, Walmart every week often on different days, etc. We buy from Amazon online frequently. Sometimes an item is cheaper at one place than another, comparison shopping, sometimes cheaper online, sometimes cheaper in the store. It all works, though the article mentions public stores and references military commissaries as an example. We can shop at the commissary if we want. We don't because the other stores I mentioned above cover all our needs better at a better price point. I do not think the article's author understands the subject matter as well as they think they do and with the many political references to the current New York mayor; it may just be disguised political messaging article.
- __float 4mo agoWhy do you need to visit Costco every week? This feels like the most inefficient combination of the city-style "shop small quantities often" and suburb-style "buy everything in bulk once a month". > ...it may just be disguised political messaging article. It doesn't seem to be particularly for or against the NYC proposal to me, so I don't understand why you are suggesting this.
- testfoobar 4mo agoFrom families I know: food is the reason. Athletic teenagers consume a lot of calories. Proteins, fruits, and vegetables along with milk, eggs, cheeses and snacks are easy to buy in bulk at Costco. These items are replenished weekly.
- rawgabbit 4mo agoNot the person you are replying to. I live near a Costco and it offers good value for money. I go there multiple times per week. I use their pharmacy which is very reasonable even without insurance. I buy fresh produce and eggs and milk and salmon. I get my tires rotated and balanced there. I also get my eyeglasses made there. Their food court is also something I can’t pass up.
- jungturk 4mo ago
- mlinsey 4mo agoCostco is an elegant solution for the suburbs, where everyone is driving around a vehicle large enough to store giant boxes off a pallet and bring them home. Here in NYC, it's really impractical to go to a warehouse and carry a month's worth of supplies home on the subway. The flip side is that the Amazon last mile deliveries are done on electric scooters that can bring a whole trailer worth of packages to the mailroom of a big apartment building. These have some other externalities (eg around traffic laws and sidewalk space) but they are on the whole a lot more resource-efficient than everyone driving around giant cars to go to the store.
- dietr1ch 4mo agoI wish cities should design a delivery railroad. I don't want to let food delivery robots take over pedestrian spaces and having standardised package sizes and weight limits would help make things efficient.
- luisln 4mo agoLarge cities are designed to get people outside, not keep them inside. A delivery raiload would take up space that could otherwise be used to transport people.
- layer8 4mo agoIt could be an underground system, like sewerage. However, noise might be an issue.
- dsr_ 4mo agoObjection: most large cities haven't been designed. They grew, usually starting because they had a significant transportation advantage (seaport, seaport + river, river junction, river + pass).
- dietr1ch 4mo agoA lot of transportation is required into cities to deliver food and supplies into supermarkets and then homes. If you improved that you'd have more space and time for fun
- QuiEgo 4mo agoI like Amazon's service. Parking at Costco on a Saturday is absurd to the point there's memes about it. I really hate standing in lines. Delivery to my door is awesome and I'm willing to pay extra for it. I also see the Amazon truck going house-to-house and don't feel guilty: I'm just one more stop along the way, my marginal impact is nothing at this point.
- Loughla 4mo agoYour last sentence is literally the tragedy of the commons.
- chopete3 4mo ago[flagged]
- MrDresden 4mo agoCostco's is only a model that works in cultures used to having to drive to get groceries. Having now lived a few years in the Netherlands, I much more prefer the ability to cycle/walk by one of the myriad of grocery stores in my day to day area and grab what I need for todays dinner.
- Rekindle8090 4mo ago[dead]
- dmix 4mo agoCostco does deliveries like most grocery stores, so you don’t need a car
- MrDresden 4mo agoThat's not a service they offer everywhere.
- caycep 4mo agoThe Costco buyers are all really quite good; whatever they are doing, they manage to fine really good suppliers for most things they carry in the store. The SoCal locations all carry really good mangoes when in season, rivaling one well known heirloom producer (Wong's...or maybe they buy from Wong's...). A local chef tried all sorts of strawberries from various farms for his line of ice cream, and concluded the Kirkland ones were the best bang for the buck...
- xiebaiyuan 4mo ago[dead]
- bobbytheblkbear 4mo agoCostco prices suck and I don't know why people clap for them.
- ktosobcy 4mo ago> One brilliant feature of the Costco experience is, paradoxically, the constraint: as opposed to Amazon, with its near infinite assortment, or even Walmart, which has approximately 130,000 SKUs (stock keeping units, or distinct items) in the average Supercenter, any given Costco will only hold 4,000 SKUs to choose from. I live in Spain now and over here we have Mercadona as a "low cost market" and they do basically the same thing - limited selection of mostly in-house brands. At first I was stlightly annoyed by it but over time it turned out that it's kinda preferred way -- indeed I waste less time hunting for The Brand and just The Item I need. And most of the time quality is on pair (or better) while costing less…
- investmuse 4mo ago[flagged]