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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#71

Post by whatever1 »

borski wrote: post #67
whatever1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’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.

In Q1 2026, AWS was 60% (roughly) of Amazon’s operating income. I’m not so sure their retail piece is the part that’s making them big money.

If they were targeting 60% margins in grocery they would be bankrupt.

Retail has famously razor thin margins.

But their cash flow came in handy when AWS needed 300B in cash for gpus. Nobody could lend them that amount.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#72

Post by mock-possum »

claw-el wrote: post #64
gwbas1c wrote: post #33

> 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 t…

Also, in the photo, it shows a huge car park. The stores, have to support large empty spaces for parking of those 100 people all driving to the store. I also wonder about the social value of utilizing the land that way.

Put solar panels over ‘em

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#73

Post by borski »

furyofantares wrote: post #53

This 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 t…

True, but at higher prices (and with delivery fees), which somewhat defeats the purpose of the cost savings at Costco.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#74

Post by ghaff »

Loudergood wrote: post #45
gwbas1c wrote: post #33

> 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 t…

Yeah, this argument falls flat on it's face. Of course it's more complex than that. When I worked from the office, centralized retail was very convenient and hardly added any driving. If you work from home, the opposite is true. The next revolution would be to standardize reusable packaging, that same daily delivery truck could bring that back. But only government could make that happen.

In fairness, Amazon does seem to have improved in this regard. There's less plastic and fewer comically oversized boxes.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#75

Post by rr808 »

I 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.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#76

Post by sourdecor »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #30
levocardia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also this argument is easily refuted by the US Postal Service, which physically delivers individual pieces of paper in a few days, for pennies.

The postal service is a quasi government entity that has operated (not to get too deep into the politics of it) for many years at a loss. It does compete with Amazon, as well as being used by Amazon, but it's very different as a business than Amazon.

I got this when I told Gemini "post office loss retirement prepaid" because of other articles I have read that I cannot remember.

"In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA). This law forced the USPS to do something virtually no other government agency or private corporation has to do: prefund its retiree healthcare benefits 75 years into the future[0]. Essentially, they were legally required to fast-track billions of dollars into a fund to pay for the future retirement health benefits of current employees, and theoretically even future employees who hadn't been hired yet."

[0]: https://apwu.org/the-usps-fairness-act/

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#77

Post by micromacrofoot »

dragontamer wrote: post #69
micromacrofoot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect delivery of single items cuts back significantly on trips to the store. Amazon is also specifically incentivized to be efficient at scale, it impacts their bottom line to the point where they care about the shape of their vehicles. Individuals don't operate on the same scale so these sort of micro-optimizations don't happen.

Humans are specifically incentivized to be efficient at scale. They'll tend to shop at loctions on the way home from work, or otherwise cut down on travel times because traffic sucks. I honestly can imagine that Costco is overall more efficient than Amazon, especially for people who do shop at Costco. If there's no Costco closeby, its more likely that the individual humans will shop elsewhere or somewhere more conven…

this isn't even close to true and falls apart in a number of ways, the most popular vehicle in america right now (F-series truck) is woefully inefficient for just about everything

there are people who regularly go out of their way to drive to their favorite store for like 1-2 special items, people bring their dogs along on trips for companionship and leave them sitting in an air conditioned idling car while they shop

individuals are irrationally inefficient in dozens of ways that large businesses root out, for better or worse

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#78

Post by anon7000 »

rr808 wrote: post #75

I 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.

Costco is one of the few stores in America that attempts to give great value to consumers. Most supermarkets just don’t

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#79

Post by claw-el »

lynndotpy wrote: post #38
gwbas1c wrote: post #33

> 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 t…

Those 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.

Technically, so is the home delivery. It is usually a delivery truck full of packages for nearby addresses.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#80

Post by borski »

whatever1 wrote: post #71
borski wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Q1 2026, AWS was 60% (roughly) of Amazon’s operating income. I’m not so sure their retail piece is the part that’s making them big money.

If they were targeting 60% margins in grocery they would be bankrupt. Retail has famously razor thin margins. But their cash flow came in handy when AWS needed 300B in cash for gpus. Nobody could lend them that amount.

I’m familiar with the margins in retail (my parents ran a retail store their entire lives).

My point wasn’t that they don’t do a lot of volume; it’s that their retail business is not what’s driving their profit, and I don’t believe it’s growing.

I wouldn’t be surprised (though have not looked) if DoorDash (with DashMart), Uber Eats (which does more than just food), and Instacart have eaten significantly into Amazon’s revenue by solving the “get it to me” problem even faster.

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