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

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.