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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#301

Post by Spooky23 »

dpark wrote: post #102
newaccountman2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could imagine Amazon incentivizing reusable containers on their own TBH. If I was living in a house and not an apartment, I could easily imagine putting the Amazon bins back out so the next time I get a delivery, they take those, and we are constantly cycling bins back and forth. Even environment aside, from a purely self-interested perspective, I would much prefer it to dealing with the recycling Amazon deliveries…

Amazon did that with an earlier version of their grocery delivery service. I assume the cost and logistics of managing and cleaning the bins just wasn’t worth it because their grocery service delivers in paper bags now. One problem with the bins for normal items is that rarely will they be packed to the brim. I imagine the overall item density would drop significantly if they started using standardized bins instead o…

That service was really weird. They had a special arrangement with the post office.

They’d slice cold cuts in New Jersey, and have USPS bring it to upstate NY and deliver before 8AM. There would literally be a mail van with two orders in it.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#302

Post by frollogaston »

khurs wrote: post #126

All the comments appear to be US centric, but Costco is also in other countries. So to tell you about the UK: Here membership is unusual in that it isn't technically open to everyone, it's business and certain professions: https://www.costco.co.uk/membership but in reality anyone who wants to join can find a way. Also no mention in the article of non-food. In UK Costco is known for special offers on electrical and wh…

USA Costco does also have a business wholesale side

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#303

Post by kulahan »

sholladay wrote: post #285

I understand the appeal, but let’s be honest. Costco is designed for rich people who think they are frugal. You drive your big SUV there to load up on months worth of food and goods, which you can only do because you have a big house with enough storage for all of it. And who cares if some of it goes bad because you can always go back for more and hey it was so cheap anyway. You even pay a membership for the privileg…

If you think "has an SUV and can buy food in advance" == "rich", then the billionaires truly have scrambled your brain.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#304

Post by frollogaston »

brailsafe wrote: post #251

My impression of Costco's selection is that it's the retail distillation of car-centric suburbs, despite it not being exclusively those people who shop there. The happy suburbanite cares about convenience and quantity above all else, from what I can tell anyway. They don't really have a varied sense of taste, they just want stuff, and they want easy access to that stuff. They like a "haul" that they do once a month,…

Costco stuff is quantity and quality

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#305

Post by darksaints »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #142
dpark wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon did that with an earlier version of their grocery delivery service. I assume the cost and logistics of managing and cleaning the bins just wasn’t worth it because their grocery service delivers in paper bags now. One problem with the bins for normal items is that rarely will they be packed to the brim. I imagine the overall item density would drop significantly if they started using standardized bins instead o…

Well, if there's one company on Earth that's both incentivized to find an algorithm to efficient pack stuff into their shipping bins and also well-financed enough to actually figure out a good linear or quadratic-time algorithm to do so, it's definitely Amazon. And once they do so they'll have solved two big problems! :)

As someone who worked on logistics optimization algorithms for Amazon, I’ll just say that the one thing Amazon did best was have clueless upper management continuously make poor strategic decisions that continuously nullified all of their improvements from optimization.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#306

Post by aabajian »

I don't think anyone has mentioned the obvious middle ground: PO Boxes at USPS post offices. Nearly every town and city in the USA has a post office. Instead of driving packages to individual's homes or having businesses deliver to their specific warehouses, the middle ground is to deliver everything to the USPS offices.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#307

Post by kulahan »

bena wrote: post #3

I'm surprised e-commerce is still under 17 percent. It makes me want to check my purchasing habits to see if I'm around that mark.

This surprised me too. My apartment hallway has 5-10 amazon packages in it per day. I guess... everyone's just spending crazy money at home. Seeing the other comment about large purchases being made in person makes sense, but still - you can buy cars and clothes online now. 17 seems REALLY low!

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#308

Post by ghaff »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #236
shawn_w wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was also a company I think who spent hundreds of millions of dollars (IIRC) in creating a large grocery website with buying large warehouses then and basically losing a ton of money. That business also failed quite drastically. Probably thinking of HomeGrocer or WebVan (which bought out the former and then went bankrupt too)

I think it was WebVan and you are right (but I am not entirely sure) but thanks for writing the comment, appreciate it :-D > (which bought out the former and then went bankrupt too) ironic, does make you think if the clock has reached full circle in terms of bubbles but there are just so many similarities within the dot com bubble and AI bubble(TM) which are just so hard to ignore.

I would have said cloud and AI but dot com probably works too.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#309

Post by kulahan »

kittikitti wrote: post #258

I think Costco is good, but it's vastly overhyped. Comparing the two is just ridiculous. Having only 4,000 SKU's and thinking less choice is good is brainrotted. Costco shoppers are annoyingly conformist. Costco is an exploitative mega-corporation and Amazon is too. Ask a Costco enthusiast and they will say they do it out of the goodness of their heart. It's really annoying and makes me completely avoid Costco. Pleas…

You should look up choice paralysis if you think that less choice being good is somehow "'brainrotted'".

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#310

Post by Spooky23 »

antiframe wrote: post #298
cortesoft wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If those Amazon trucks are all full, and are making deliveries constantly along their routes, than more trucks doesn't mean less efficiency. Right but a truck could be full of not 100 packages for 100 houses, but 100 packages for 70 houses. Both are full, but one will require fewer miles driven, hence be more (fuel/environmental impact) efficient (not necessarily time efficient).

They are optimizing for time and cost, not message board clout :)

They presort regionally and the trucks at the delivery stations are loaded with assigned containers/pouches of packages. It doesn’t make sense to hold a truck for a pouch and doesn’t really save anything to have ground covered twice.

They do other stuff too. They schlep heavy stuff on UPS, and hazardous or liquids usually go USPS.

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