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Love Song to Costco

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Re: Love Song to Costco

#131

Post by JumpCrisscross »

freeqaz wrote: post #120
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.

The simplest answer to this is Kirkland Signature. It's a very genius idea that Amazon is starting to copy now with AmazonBasics, but Costco has been doing it for years. This article explains it better than I can: https://every.to/napkin-math/how-costco-convinces-brands-to-... TL;DR: If you buy something like Grey Goose vodka, it's going to be the same product as the Kirkland Signature version on the shelf next to it…

The source for this article’s core claim is a pair of Reddit comments, FYI.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#132

Post by p_l »

namdnay wrote: post #127
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.

I guess the european equivalent would be LIDL

Lidl, at least in most places, doesn't run bulk stores like Costco apparently is.

There are some bulk stores with memberships, some of them limited to B2B sales, some accepting normal people as customers - places like MAKRO and Selgross - but they obviously are mainly a warehouse supplier for shops and companies.

I don't know how Lidl is in terms of selection in other countries, but especially with smaller stores the joke is that "every week something new" which refers more to somewhat random selection, and they tend to have lesser known brands (which, while not necessarily a bad thing, isn't also a sign of quality, and sometimes you really like the specific brand). Personally when I shopped more at Lidl (had one opposite of office), I compared the selection to "what recently fell of the truck and will stay till it's all sold"

Re: Love Song to Costco

#133

Post by TheRealNGenius »

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…

that doesn't make sense. It says that the "typical shopper" is one very specific gender/age/income/racial category.

What the heck does that mean? Am I supposed to believe that the most common category of people are that category, or that those attributes are the more common ones? I'm positive I see an almost even split of male/female when I go to Costco. Otherwise, that wording is jacked by any metric.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#134

Post by lotsofpulp »

shaftway wrote: post #104
iudqnolq wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I strongly suspect it's the extra services that third parties sell through them. Like the vacation packages, air conditioning installation, etc. We almost got a Puronics filter through them, but stopped short when we found out that it was $9000 at Costco, but $6000 through an independent installer.

Costco’s profit is all membership fees. Everything else is (in aggregate) sold at cost. This is public information in their 10-K filings.

For the hotel and travel stuff, they get a commission like other travel agents/channels.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#135

Post by christophilus »

noSyncCloud wrote: post #102
inferiorhuman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Samsung is easily the worst appliance manufacturer in North America > LG's not too much better Any sources for these blazing hot takes? Or are we supposed to take your hearsay at face value?

Last time I shopped for a fridge (2 years ago, maybe) every single sales guy and maintenance guy I talked to at maybe 4 different stores said: “Never buy a Samsung.”

They all seemed to think that LG had gotten its act together, though. I ended up with an LG fridge.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#136

Post by lotsofpulp »

iudqnolq wrote: post #99
inferiorhuman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The reason to pick Costco for appliances is because you get a 4 year warranty if you use Costco credit card (in the US).

Re: Love Song to Costco

#137

Post by lotsofpulp »

grapeskin wrote: post #75
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.

I was a member for 2 years, although outside of the US. The store is mostly US/UK/Australian imports of questionable quality, prices far higher than local goods (which is to be expected when shipped long distance for one specific chain), and questionable desirability (e.g. sauces not used much in local cuisine, of far lower quality than local brands, in containers far larger while also more expensive per gram). Produ…

Winco is great, but it is not competing with Costco, which has a reputation for selling curated products with somewhat higher quality.

Winco is solid though, and living near both is extremely convenient.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#138

Post by pirate787 »

freeqaz wrote: post #120
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.

The simplest answer to this is Kirkland Signature. It's a very genius idea that Amazon is starting to copy now with AmazonBasics, but Costco has been doing it for years. This article explains it better than I can: https://every.to/napkin-math/how-costco-convinces-brands-to-... TL;DR: If you buy something like Grey Goose vodka, it's going to be the same product as the Kirkland Signature version on the shelf next to it…

Store brands (private label brands owned by the retailer) have been around forever and are not a Costco innovation. Every US grocery store and most big box stores sell them.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#139

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

> A separate article by Investopedia [1] also asserts that Costco mostly opens stores in affluent suburban areas, and originally targeted college-educated and financially wealthier customers.

This is obvious simply by searching for Costcos on a map. Or the fact that any time your total is less than $100, the cashier and the customer joke about how lucky and rare the sub $100 receipt is.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#140

Post by sammalloy »

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.

> I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco

I’ve been going to Costco since it was Price Club in the 1980s. I can explain why people love it. There’s an aura of mystery to the shopping experience because of the philosophy behind the layout. They basically want you to shop around the whole store because nothing is ever in the same place and product longevity beyond basic consumer staples is unheard of. In other words, it is unlikely the special product you find one week will be there the next. This kind of unpredictability goes against the grain of the reliability built into the shopping experience, and it’s what I find so attractive about it. Not only will you be exposed to something new and different, but you’ll have to settle for an entirely different product than the one you planned on buying because of the surprise factor at work. Obviously, this consumer approach won’t work for everyone, especially those who stubbornly buy the same thing every week or month.

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