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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#241

Post by adi_kurian »

rpdillon wrote: post #202
oezi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster is indeed criticizing bulk shopping. I would then to agree that shopping in bulk makes it easier to overprovision or to have things go to waste or being bought superfluously. I am also not sure about it being cheaper in total because my experience with bulk sellers is that they achieve their profit margins by their product mix, so selling you some cheap items as loss leaders or discount items and r…

I've done the A/B test. Costco saves my family 25% across just food, ignoring other stuff I get there (batteries, shirts, jackets, shoes, underwear, deodorant, etc.) You're pointing out that you need to plan properly to bulk shop, since you're necessarily modeling future consumption over days/weeks across multiple people, but that's different than over-consumption. It means you have to be analytical and plan, but tha…

There are four Costco's in NYC, all but one in working class neighborhoods, and full of large families getting deals.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#242

Post by nobodyandproud »

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.

I have yet to see a Costco not filled to the brim.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#243

Post by makeitdouble »

pupppet wrote: post #4

Whenever someone says America can do great things, I don't think of battleships, fighter jets, or AI models, I think of Costco.

To note, Costco doesn't make much sense in most places outside of the USA (and doesn't have to. No shop needs to cater to the whole world).

It still exists in select locations in some countries, but are more exotic experiences than anything else. Shopping for weeks of groceries at a time is IMHO crazy niche, it requires a level of isolation and buying power that is seldom combined.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#244

Post by arealaccount »

Oh man we went to Costco today to purchase a membership, was finally convinced after all of the $1.50 hot dog memes

It was a used car tier hard sell to get the “executive” membership, after saying no a half dozen times literally everything we said was an invite to highly recommended the damn executive card.

Then they offer $20 back on your membership if you sign up for auto pay (and install the costco app on your phone and give up your email and phone). But you need a card, and it can’t be Amex, Mastercard, or Discover, so of course the very highly recommendation is to get the Costco Visa. It has no annual fee and you get %2 back, and even if you don’t spend enough you'll get a minimum of $65 back, which is the difference between the regular card and the executive. So the executive card is basically a no brainer.

Well we couldn’t get the $20 back coupon and at this point im feeling like Costco isn’t as customer friendly as the internet says, but it turns out we can actually use discover (debit only) on the phone app. Even though honestly the executive card pays for itself, also the Costco visa has no annual fee you can just get it and never use it.

I ended up getting the plain gold star card, got some free samples and was thoroughly impressed with the $1.50 hot dog. But I think I hate this store, onboarding was such a shady process.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#245

Post by stevenhuang »

oezi wrote: post #162
dghlsakjg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like American over-consumption you can go to Carrefour and try out French overconsumption where people load up oversized trollies with corporate food to take to their SUVs in the overflowing parking lot... in France. Are you under the impression that it is a uniquely American trait to have a bigger house than you need, more car than you need, and a penchant for corporate food? Over-consumption is human n…

Since toilet paper is mostly non-perishable it shouldn't really matter, right? But for anything that goes bad there is also a tipping point where you bought too much and have things go to waste.

Do you really think families waste half of what they buy at Costco?

Come on now.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#246

Post by abawany »

borski wrote: post #73
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.

Yep, around 18% higher not including tip, in my estimate. HEB (local Texas grocery chain featured here a few days ago) puts in just a 3% margin for pickup or delivery (before tip.) Walmart and Sams have no special delivery/pickup margin but instead charge delivery fees that can be avoided by membership levels or order amount thresholds.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#247

Post by thephyber »

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…

It’s much more complicated than that.

In a society where everybody is already driving to school, work, food, shopping medical appointments, gas stations, kids sports, etc this is just a marginal additional trip for the consumer.

Having redundant logistics companies (USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, Amazon, WalMart, Uber, etc) all making deliveries optimizing for something other than _minimum distance traveled_ means they aren’t optimizing for the same thing the consumer would.

Also, there is the game theory aspect. When a consumer mentally thinks they can just make a $5 purchase on Amazon and get it delivered the next day “for free”, they are less likely to take care to shop in bulk / batch their purchases. Nobody goes to CostCo for a $5 trip (except for the weirdos who go there just for the hot dog / pizza lunch). I personally don’t like the hassle of CostCo for less than a $200 shopping trip.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#248

Post by snark42 »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #98
frollogaston wrote: post #7

Costco is mostly food, clothes, furniture, other large things, and auto services, which generally you don't get from Amazon even if you aren't a Costco member. The points about less choice more apply to like Costco vs grocery stores or Walmart. And I do like Costco, similar low-choice reason I like Trader Joe's even though Costco is its own league.

The Trader Joe's model is an interesting comparison with the Costco model. Similarities: * Like you said, both have fewer choices than a conventional grocery store: if you want ketchup or peanut butter, there's only going to be one brand and one size. * Both of them don't have scales at the registers: unlike at a conventional grocery store, nothing is sold by weight (which I'm sure provides another small efficiency g…

> unlike at a conventional grocery store, nothing is sold by weight

Costco and TJs both sell items like meat by weight, they're just pre-labeled so they can be scanned rather than weighed at the register. Things like produce that might be weighed elsewhere are sold by each or container though.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#249

Post by SoftTalker »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #132
SoftTalker wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi seems to. I thought of them as I read about Costco, not because of the size of their stores (which are generally quite small as supermarkets go) but because of the limited choices. Aldi normally has everything I need but doesn't have a lot of choice in any individual thing. It makes shopping there feel very efficient.

Walmart does this too, and it's one of the worst experiences/value-propositions I've ever experienced. It might be better in the US but in Canada it's expensive, poor quality and painful: pick three.

Walmart stores are huge though, particulary the SuperWalmarts with supermarket and department store combined. Aldi is compact, maybe 4 or 5 aisles, a refrigerated section, and a frozen food section.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#250

Post by socalgal2 »

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.

Sounds Costco not paying for externalities.
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