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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#591

Post by oblio »

Insanity wrote: post #530
maleldil wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live within walking distance of a good shop, you likely would make more trips instead of buying in bulk once a week.

I don’t but YMMV of course. Maybe if I was single, but it’s just inefficient to go multiple times a week. And then there’s heavier things to carry (drinks).

> Maybe if I was single, but it’s just inefficient to go multiple times a week.

You go with the kids and/or wife and you do it on the way to or back from work or to/from school drop off.

You don't do dedicated grocery runs, they're detours on top of your existing trips.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#592

Post by twoodfin »

me-vs-cat wrote: post #588
twoodfin wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the government have anything to say about price negotiations between producers and retailers of frozen pizzas? Robinson-Patman is terrible law that’s more or less impossible to enforce equitably. So it hasn’t been.

Lax RPA enforcement may have significantly contributed to food deserts. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/food-deser... I hope government representatives have things to say about that.

That’s not really responsive to my concerns about Robinson-Patman.

A world where it’s enforced uniformly and strictly might have some local benefits, but getting the government involved in regulating every wholesale transaction for “fairness” is a recipe for stagnation, corruption, or more likely both.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#593

Post by alistairSH »

cortesoft wrote: post #221
alistairSH wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue is Amazon doesn’t appear to optimize for “fewest trucks trips to the block” - we’ll see 4-5 Amazon trucks/couriers on our cul de sac every day (plus USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL). That’s for 10 homes. If Amazon was able to do one truck to the block, that would big a big win for fewer trips/less emissions. Probably.

You aren't seeing the entire picture, though, so it makes it hard to understand the efficiency calculation. How full are those Amazon trucks, and how many deliveries are they each making on their route? If those Amazon trucks are all full, and are making deliveries constantly along their routes, than more trucks doesn't mean less efficiency. They aren't optimizing for "fewest truck trips to the block", they are optim…

Yup, exactly. My gut says we don’t price the externalities correctly, so Amazon is able to route for faster deliveries (“Get it by 5am if you order by 10pm”).

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#594

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

eep_social wrote: post #522
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was reading the book "How the internet happened": During the dot com bubble, there was a company called furniture.com which basically lost a lot of its investor money by learning the hard truth that IKEA also had to learn that shipping Heavy things like furniture isn't actually economical. I am not sure if costco's model could allow it but especially for amazon, if they tried to do it or make it their USP like furn…

> when Amazon was first established, one of the largest loopholes that they had used.. I thought for sure you were going to mention USPS “media” rates which allowed Amazon to ship books very cheaply.

> I thought for sure you were going to mention USPS “media” rates which allowed Amazon to ship books very cheaply.

Can you share any articles talking about that? Looks like Amazon had so many tricks up its sleeves/loopholes in its arsenal. I'd be curious to read more about it!

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#595

Post by fmajid »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #517
names_are_hard wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny when quintessential American business models bump up against foreign regulations and they have to find workarounds to keep in line with the law while trying to stay true to character. Not long ago I was in a Five Guys in France. There was a sign saying that by law free refills are not allowed, please scan the qr code to fill your cup. I guess there was a qr code on the receipt, I don't know, as far as I ca…

TIL there is Five Guys in France (I thought they were only in the US)

In the UK as well.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#596

Post by me-vs-cat »

twoodfin wrote: post #592
me-vs-cat wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lax RPA enforcement may have significantly contributed to food deserts. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/food-deser... I hope government representatives have things to say about that.

That’s not really responsive to my concerns about Robinson-Patman. A world where it’s enforced uniformly and strictly might have some local benefits, but getting the government involved in regulating every wholesale transaction for “fairness” is a recipe for stagnation, corruption, or more likely both.

It is responsive to your question on why the government should have something to say about price negotiations between producers and retailers of frozen pizzas.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#597

Post by twoodfin »

me-vs-cat wrote: post #596
twoodfin wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really responsive to my concerns about Robinson-Patman. A world where it’s enforced uniformly and strictly might have some local benefits, but getting the government involved in regulating every wholesale transaction for “fairness” is a recipe for stagnation, corruption, or more likely both.

It is responsive to your question on why the government should have something to say about price negotiations between producers and retailers of frozen pizzas.

Government overreach X is good because in a sea of bad consequences, a few good things happen, too?

It’s much better for governments to be principled, and only interfere with mutually voluntary engagements by citizens when there’s an urgent harm to remedy.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#598

Post by shoeb00m »

Backslasher wrote: post #19

The part about Costco choosing to avoid the last mile shipping problem reminded me of a proverb, roughly translated as: A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it. I think it holds a lot of truth in engineering.

Yes, how foolish of Amazon to become one of the world’s biggest retailers by solving last mile delivery. /s

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#599

Post by satvikpendem »

mullingitover wrote: post #560
satvikpendem wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competitive advantage is being able to order in the same shipment as all your other stuff, and it should also obviate the need to go to the store too, saving time and likely money by not being enticed to buy other things while you're there. Even if I didn't use Amazon I'd still use grocery delivery such as what Costco offers for example.

I don't think my point got through: purchasing vegetables and fruits, essential staple foods, involves some amount of discernment. It's not like grabbing a USB cable out of the box of identical USB cables. Passing this task off to someone who's essentially the lowest bidder and doesn't care about picking acceptable quality goods, in my repeated experience, does not work. They pick unusable goods, wasting my time and…

Maybe you are looking for only exceptional produce because I've never had an issue, in looks or quality. There are even sellers who purposefully sell you produce that does not look good but otherwise tastes fine, such as Misfits Market.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#600

Post by lesostep »

delichon wrote: post #173
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…

For small items, add drones and the last miles savings get big. Weight of a typical car: 4,000 lbs. Weight of a typical delivery drone: 80 lbs. Typical drone payload: 5 lbs. 5 mile drone delivery: ~2 kWh 5 mile car delivery: ~100 kWh So the breakeven is ~50 such items in one order.

math checks out, assuming typical car is flying
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