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Love Song to Costco

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Re: Love Song to Costco

#91

Post by rexf »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #76
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Costco account and a Sam's Club (Walmart's Costco equivalent) account. Even though I do something like 98% of my bulk shopping at Sam's club (due to proximity, the Costco is ~ 15 min drive away vs 5 mins for the Sam's club), it's still worth it for me to hold the Costco membership for specific purchases. Notably I've purchased (because there's no better place to buy these things and the vendor vetting is ama…

> when it comes to a $4,000 gazebo or some $2,000 appliance I have really come to trust Costco's vetting. How does that jive with selling Samsung (and LG) appliances? Samsung is easily the worst appliance manufacturer in North America across pretty much any appliance. LG's not too much better but supposedly their dryers and front load washers are decent.

Shopping for appliances is not easy.

For my recent purchase, I looked at wirecutter as a starting point and bought from Costco. Also I got a 3rd party extended warranty (since you never know with water-using appliances).

According to Wirecutter (NYT): "If you’re a member, Costco offers the cheapest delivery and installation of the big national chains, you’ll get an additional year of warranty coverage for many products, and it will help you make warranty claims with the manufacturer."

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/where-to-buy-appl...

Re: Love Song to Costco

#92

Post by rexf »

kvark wrote: post #54
lbrito wrote: post #47

Haven't read the piece yet, but I definitely will - for a long time I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco. I recently joined because they have some good food that is hard or more expensive to find elsewhere, but that's about it. To me it's just a store. Outside of the US/Canada I've never seen people evangelize a store so much.

For me, it’s a modern equivalent of the soviet stores. There is no 10 kinds of everything, but the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price. Speaking more modern, it saves the mental effort of researching choices. Need something? Check Costco, buy if there, done. Of course there are negatives associated with them, too.

Yeah, Costco has OK selection and OK/good prices. The downside for groceries is the bulk sizing can be much more than you want to buy.

Their return policy is also very good. Obviously do not abuse this (or you are being a jerk). This means you can buy things without hesitation since you can easily return it should you run into an issue later.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#93

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

jedberg wrote: post #86
ortusdux wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alcohol restriction is at the state level, so some stores do require a membership. Namely : Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Texas, & Vermont have laws that ban requiring memberships for the purchase of alcohol. IIRC, Costco's lobbiests played a large role in Washington's privatization of liquor sales, and the final law did not include such…

Fun fact, if you get the upgraded membership and don't spend enough to make up the difference from the regular membership, they will refund you the difference if you ask. So technically it doesn't make any sense to not get the premium membership as long as you're willing to float them the difference for a year.

I can confirm that this is true.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#94

Post by divbzero »

insightcheck wrote: post #77
divbzero wrote: post #61

I’ve always had a gut feeling that Costco’s customers represent a broader swath of socioeconomic diversity than most other stores. Don’t know how true that is and would love to learn if there’s real data behind it.

Business Insider hired an analytics firm named Numerator to create a report that finds on the average Costco customer [0]. I couldn't find the original data or report in Business Insider's summary, but from its article: "Numerator found that Costco's typical shopper in the US is an Asian American woman between 35 and 44 years old who is married and living in a city in the Pacific Northwest. (Costco was founded in Sea…

I couldn’t find the original data either. Numerator offers snapshots of customer distribution [2] that go beyond just a median or mode, but does not share it publicly for Costco.

[2]: https://www.numerator.com/snapshots

Re: Love Song to Costco

#96

Post by markles »

speed_spread wrote: post #51
throwawayarnty wrote: post #8

Amazing how much China has changed over the past 60 years. From backwards and famined to a global super power.

But are there Costcos in China? Also, do people in China get out of the city to go camping for the weekend? These are honest questions I'd like to have answers for.

Most cities have plenty of hiking and camping groups you can join. Hiking and other outdoor activities have grown considerably in popularity in the last couple of decades.

Lots of stone path walkways which people will refer to as hiking, but isn't what most in Europe or the US would consider it to be. There are groups that build off old paths that connect villages or which were used for hunting. Some areas have really nice networks of trails, though, just not to the extent you'd find elsewhere.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#97

Post by TulliusCicero »

throwamon wrote: post #27
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #4

As a native born and poor American without any parents I feel the same way going to Costco. Its miraculous. After being homeless a few times as a native born American I still feel like showers are the ultimate luxury. I'm always happy to see immigrants with jobs in America and Europe but I can't help but wonder what can we do to make other countries as desirable as America? Theres billions of people. Why aren't their…

> Why aren't their countries desirable as well? Yup, that would be pretty nice. If only America would let them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

> Yup, that would be pretty nice. If only America would let them.

And yet, if you ask people actually from those countries, rarely will they pin Uncle Sam as the primary reason they're still not well developed.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#98

Post by mongol »

Costco will open in Sweden soon. On the opposite part of Stockholm from where I live, so I don't think it will be useful for me. I don't know much about it but I am excited to see what it will bring, and if it will affect the general grocery market around here.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#99

Post by iudqnolq »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #71
kvark wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it’s a modern equivalent of the soviet stores. There is no 10 kinds of everything, but the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price. Speaking more modern, it saves the mental effort of researching choices. Need something? Check Costco, buy if there, done. Of course there are negatives associated with them, too.

> the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price I bought into the hype and got a Costco membership a few years back. One of the first things I went looking for was whole bean coffee (Peet's xmas roast). The local Costco had a bunch of coffee from Starbucks and Peets (meh quality to start) but only the painfully dark roasts and all of it was ground. Pre-ground coffee in bulk ha…

My experience is the big ticket items are all fine products at normal prices, but there's no reason to pick Costco for them. I suspect it's where they make a lot of their profit, considering their groceries are famously low margin. I buy groceries and gas exclusively there.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#100

Post by slyall »

lbrito wrote: post #47

Haven't read the piece yet, but I definitely will - for a long time I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco. I recently joined because they have some good food that is hard or more expensive to find elsewhere, but that's about it. To me it's just a store. Outside of the US/Canada I've never seen people evangelize a store so much.

New Zealand is getting our first store in a couple of months and people are obsessed with it. Stories in the media nearly every week. Long queues for membership.

A lot of this is because the local Supermarket Duopoly avoids competing on price and makes great profits. People are looking forward to cutting their costs and also a flow-on as the supermarkets cut their prices a little to compete.

Similar to IKEA which is a year or so away. Easy to take for granted when you have it but the alternative is paying a lot more for similar to worse quality.

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