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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#431

Post by Insanity »

adrianN wrote: post #407
drnick1 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I would rather not have stores near my home, for obvious reasons like noise, traffic, trash, etc.

There is less traffic and hence less noise when people have stores at a walkable distance.

I doubt this is true. I walk to the store when I quickly need to get eggs or milk or something random I forgot. But I’ll drive to do the weekly grocery trip because I can’t carry food for a week (for a family) on my own without driving.

It’s almost like the AI answering “should I walk or drive to the nearest carwash”. Sure I can walk, I just can’t complete the grocery shopping lol.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#432

Post by WarmWash »

hx8 wrote: post #319
oatmeal1 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next revolution is zoning reform so it's legal to build shopping people want to do within walking distance of where they live.

As someone that has lived in a walkable neighborhood with a lot of shopping let me tell you, it doesn't solve the problem. Realistically you aren't going to reach more than 250k skus within a 20 minute walk of your home, and probably less. Even this is very heavily biased towards using retail space instead of space for anything else (homes, restaurants, parks, offices). You can only build up to add more space within…

A lot of trendy ideas have come out of the internet, but I don't think any of them have achieved the religious status of "fuckcars" (aka walkable neighborhoods).

Its not that the ideas are bad or wholly wrong, but their is a sizeable contingent of followers who believe that walkable living is a silver bullet that fixes everything. Everything.

So to someone who happens to fall into contact with an evangelist, they sit and listen for a few minutes, and then come away like they just learned who the real God is. Any societal or personal illness you can think of, the Church of Fuckcars has a confident and surface level "makes sense" answer.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#433

Post by names_are_hard »

DrewADesign wrote: post #345
throwawaygod wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? Non-american here :)

It’s a chain of gas stations along interstate highways, either mostly or entirely in the south. Many are contenders for, and one of them is, the world’s largest gas station— not hyperbole. One has 120 gas pumps and they do so much volume, they have a team of attendants running around outside to deal with card/pump problems. They’re open 24/7/365 and constantly have dozens of fresh, made on-site BBQ items and sides re…

Wow. I spent decades of my life living in the US but apparently the wrong parts. Now I'm living in a different continent but I hope one day I'll have the opportunity to experience this part of America.

Happy Independence Day!

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#434

Post by joezydeco »

rexf wrote: post #399
joezydeco wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The entire store is wired to encourage impulse buying and keep you from making rational decisions about whether you'll be able to finish that 3lb container of guacamole before it goes bad.

Also Costco has a really annoying "treasure hunt" strategy where goods are re-arranged around the store trying to get you to explore aisles (aka get lost and waste time) to impulse buy more stuff. Other stores (Target, Walmart, etc) will let you look up the item's aisle in their app and be considerate of your time.

Costco's app will let you search inventory, but not let you see location or quantity.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#435

Post by names_are_hard »

saratogacx wrote: post #293
jephs wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth is the point of limiting membership to such random and specific groups?

Government Regulations[1] > According to the Costco U.K. website, memberships to those stores are only available to certain groups of people. Since the store is classified as a wholesaler, this complies with the U.K.'s wholesale store laws. These dictate that wholesale stores are only accessible to those working for select business sectors. [1] https://www.thedailymeal.com/1483679/costco-uk-membership-re...

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 can tell there was no enforcement and people just kept filing up their drinks like true Americans. Let freedom ring, I guess.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#436

Post by bell-cot »

mattmaroon wrote: post #170

Costcos tech stack is frankly unconscionably bad. It’s the one way in which Sam’s Club crushes them. There’s no reason they couldn’t do basically all of the good things mentioned in this article plus have a functional website, let me scan and pay with my phone in store, have a handheld scanner at each register, etc.

Very few people are shopping at Costco for their tech stack.

And maybe it's just their talented/experienced/numerous staff, but my in-store experience with their tech is as good as it gets. Stuff just works, and works quickly.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#437

Post by oblio »

Insanity wrote: post #430
card_zero wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the argument either. Perhaps if you can't walk very far? If I put half an hour into walking I can easily buy all the essentials, such as a crash cymbal, oil of violets, steel nibs for my dip pen, a CD player, and a teapot.

I live in a metropolitan area and can walk to many stores within a 30 minute radius. (First supermarket is less than 5 minutes away). But there is the added complication of weight. I can’t buy food for a week without driving there. Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

It's an infrastructure thing. With the right regular/cargo bike or even better, an ebike/cargo ebike, 30-40kg of groceries per run is super doable.

> Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

Do you buy a TV more than once every 5-10 years? You can rent a small van or whatever.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#438

Post by yw3410 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #419
throw1234567891 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you have to carry everything, how often do you go shopping?

not who you were asking, but I walk to the store and carry my groceries home. Usually, twice a week or something. It's great. 10 minute walk each way, approximately, and never more than I can easily carry. I buy for two people. I'd go more often if I shopped for more. I do occasionally visit other stores - once or twice a month - because they have different selection of goods. To be fair, I'm still carrying the stuff…

Similar - realistically, unless you're stuck at home in a city, you can also plan to stop off somewhere on your way back from some event. If you mostly walk/public transport the overhead of this is very low.

If your events are regular, then you don't need to do the research each time either; and it becomes maybe an extra five or ten minutes.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#439

Post by rootusrootus »

antisthenes wrote: post #156
oezi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have ever watched a deliver truck on their tracking app to crawl its way to you from stop to stop you realize the most optimistic timing is maybe 1 minute per package. Assuming the truck, driver, gas could be operated for 60 USD/hr the marginal cost seems more like 1 USD per package, but likely more.

No wonder Amazon decided to basically create their own logistic chain. Fedex/UPS cost for a single package is roughly ~$13.95 (this was ~5 years ago when I was working in ecommerce) and even if Amazon was getting a huge discount from them for the volume they do, it was still probably nowhere near $1/package.

That 13.95 price includes airplane rides too, it isn't just the last mile delivery.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#440

Post by newsoftheday »

We are probably fortunate, we live 5 minutes from one Costco, 6 minutes from a second one and 17 minutes from a third. My wife visits Costco every week, Walmart every week often on different days, etc. We buy from Amazon online frequently. Sometimes an item is cheaper at one place than another, comparison shopping, sometimes cheaper online, sometimes cheaper in the store.

It all works, though the article mentions public stores and references military commissaries as an example. We can shop at the commissary if we want. We don't because the other stores I mentioned above cover all our needs better at a better price point.

I do not think the article's author understands the subject matter as well as they think they do and with the many political references to the current New York mayor; it may just be disguised political messaging article.

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