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I've been to Costco. It's a madhouse, and quite unnerving for an introvert like myself. But that's not even the main reason I like Amazon -- it's for the prod

by borlak 14y ago

I've been to Costco. It's a madhouse, and quite unnerving for an introvert like myself. But that's not even the main reason I like Amazon -- it's for the product ratings. How do I know what I'm getting at Costco is the best quality for the price? I can get a very good idea of that at Amazon. Not to mention Costco can't even being to compete with the product selection at Amazon.

niggler 14y ago
"It's a madhouse, and quite unnerving for an introvert like myself." That is a fair point. On the flip side, I find phone or email or text-based customer service to be unnerving. I like talking to a real person face-to-face :) Part of why I like TD Bank (in the northeast, it's the only bank open on Sundays) "How do I know what I'm getting at Costco is the best quality for the price? I can get a very good idea of that at Amazon. Not to mention Costco can't even being to compete with the product selection at Amazon." There are two ways to look at product selection and product ratings. Amazon gives you everything and the kitchen sick, and leaves the problem of quality to you (via the ratings scheme, but in order to have a rating someone else must have purchased it and thought it wasn't good). Every purchase carries, above the standard risk of product defect, the risk that the product may be terrible. While Costco doesn't have the breadth of substitutes in any particular class of item, their selections are generally high quality. They separate the sheep from the goats for you, and while I've had some bad experiences with products from Amazon I haven't had a bad experience with costco stuff (even with their store brand "Kirkland"). So you have Amazon, which gives you depth of selection but requires you to do the due diligence and take the risk, and you have Costco, which gives you limited selection but doesn't offer the stuff that would get 1 or 2 stars on Amazon.
lazerwalker 14y ago
Not being able to compete with Amazon's product selection is a feature, not a bug. Amazon's answer to the question of "how do I know I'm getting something that is high quality at a good price?" is to give you a wide range of options and give you all the data to make an informed decision. Costco's answer is to give you only one or two choices after building up an underlying sense of trust that (a) their prices are fair (everything is priced at a flat percentage over cost, rather than varying profit margins based on the item), and that (b) the products they choose to sell are generally very high quality. There are a lot of groceries and household goods that I buy at Costco rather than anywhere else because Costco's house brand is better than luxury-brand competitors and costs half as much. As someone who likes to fuss over every single purchasing decision and compare a dozen nearly-identical models of something before buying, I agree that Amazon's model is preferable. On the whole, I buy more things from Amazon than Costco. But that doesn't mean that Costco's model doesn't have merit for a lot of people.

by borlak 14y ago

niggler 14y ago

"It's a madhouse, and quite unnerving for an introvert like myself." That is a fair point. On the flip side, I find phone or email or text-based customer service to be unnerving. I like talking to a real person face-to-face :) Part of why I like TD Bank (in the northeast, it's the only bank open on Sundays) "How do I know what I'm getting at Costco is the best quality for the price? I can get a very good idea of that at Amazon. Not to mention Costco can't even being to compete with the product selection at Amazon." There are two ways to look at product selection and product ratings. Amazon gives you everything and the kitchen sick, and leaves the problem of quality to you (via the ratings scheme, but in order to have a rating someone else must have purchased it and thought it wasn't good). Every purchase carries, above the standard risk of product defect, the risk that the product may be terrible. While Costco doesn't have the breadth of substitutes in any particular class of item, their selections are generally high quality. They separate the sheep from the goats for you, and while I've had some bad experiences with products from Amazon I haven't had a bad experience with costco stuff (even with their store brand "Kirkland"). So you have Amazon, which gives you depth of selection but requires you to do the due diligence and take the risk, and you have Costco, which gives you limited selection but doesn't offer the stuff that would get 1 or 2 stars on Amazon.

lazerwalker 14y ago

Not being able to compete with Amazon's product selection is a feature, not a bug. Amazon's answer to the question of "how do I know I'm getting something that is high quality at a good price?" is to give you a wide range of options and give you all the data to make an informed decision. Costco's answer is to give you only one or two choices after building up an underlying sense of trust that (a) their prices are fair (everything is priced at a flat percentage over cost, rather than varying profit margins based on the item), and that (b) the products they choose to sell are generally very high quality. There are a lot of groceries and household goods that I buy at Costco rather than anywhere else because Costco's house brand is better than luxury-brand competitors and costs half as much. As someone who likes to fuss over every single purchasing decision and compare a dozen nearly-identical models of something before buying, I agree that Amazon's model is preferable. On the whole, I buy more things from Amazon than Costco. But that doesn't mean that Costco's model doesn't have merit for a lot of people.