Costco is the anti-Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#451

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #253

bellgrove wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this depends a lot on location. Parking is a nightmare at my local Costco. The employees are friendly enough most of the time. I truly admire the value and business model but Costco is pretty much the absolute worst shopping experience I can think of.

It's because they are so busy. Yeah, costco is the one store I go to that people seem to have 0 spatial awareness. Every time I go, someone will just stop moving in the middle of the aisle, creating backups, without any shame. But I bet if your other local grocery stores were as busy as costco, they would have the same issues.

That's interesting because my experience is the opposite. Costco can swallow up an irrational number of people and still be pretty smooth inside. The parking lot can be packed and when you walk in the door it turns out to be fine.

Walmart, on the other hand, is the absolute pinnacle of shitty shopper behavior. People being rude, pushy, completely oblivious standing in the middle of the aisle, etc. At least in my area, Costco attracts a different kind of clientele.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#452

Post by SkiFire13 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

tstenner wrote: post #403

hx8 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in a walkable quarter and I can reach three full supermarkets and 2 specialty supermarkets within 5 minutes. Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce, I can get it. Same with public schools (5 within a 2 mile radius), childcare (3), hospitals (2) and the park.

> Doesn't matter whether I need to stock up on milk, vegetables or hand peeled shrimp in garlic sauce

I don't even consider those when shopping online.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#453

Post by mongol » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #404

goosejuice wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

250k skus seems pretty arbitrary. What's the significance of this number? A bodega goes a long way for most people's daily needs.

It’s an unrealistic number to justify the argument. Unless you consume for the sake of consuming, there’s no way anyone needs an offer that rich for routine usage. Aldi and Lidl carry ~2-3k SKUs. A regular grocery will carry maybe 20k. In places where enough of these are built close to where people actually live you don’t ever need to touch the car for shopping. Small shopping centers (those that also have a somethin…

I use to shop at Lidl. As you say, they carry a limited SKU assortment. But I have found it doesn't really matter. When I go to a grocery store that carries more variety, it feels exciting, but in the end it makes no difference. As long as I can get the essentials, I will manage. I don't need 20 types of hamburger dressing. I can make my own from first principles. I don't need 40 types of yoghurt. I buy can natural and eat with fresh fruit. And so on.

Lidl also has this interesting approach that they rotate some assortment. You can't find everything all the time. But once you realize that certain things periodically come back, you pick them up when they are in stock to make sure you have them at home. It is not as convenient, but if you make it a habit, it is a very minor disadvantage.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#454

Post by handle584 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #243

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.

[dead]

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#455

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

snark42 wrote: post #248

lemoncucumber wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And regular grocery stores like Kroger do much the same thing. Aside from picking out individual produce items, and even then a lot of times it is per-item pricing. Nearly all of the by-weight stuff is pre-labeled

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#456

Post by arealaccount » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

_RPM wrote: post #334

arealaccount wrote: post #244

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 pho…

You can sign up online, which you should have done, the guy you were taking was doing his job.

I understand the guy and his manager he called over for the hard sell were doing their jobs, that’s exactly the point.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#457

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #449

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 depends on the lived environment. In my US suburban house, a 20 minute drive from the warehouse/Costco, absolutely. In the Spanish town I am in, where I can do 10 errands in an hour ln foot, as basically every street level space is a store, and streets are themselves narrow, Amazon's logistics advantage loses to the Asian bazaar.

Costco's Spain operation is primarily for logistics and product test, not market penetration.

Costco usually tests suppliers' packaging and logistics for products at their ExAmerica warehouses before deciding on exporting that vendor's product to NAM.

This is how Costco became the largest alcohol exporter in Europe, why most frozen fish at Costco is soured from Iceland, and how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean goods and vendors are tested before selling at Costcos with large Asian American populations.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#458

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:14 PM UTC

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.

It's also different demographics. Costco shoppers have always been in the highest income brackets, while Amazon's are middle of the pack and Walmart's tend to be at the lower end [0][1].

[0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-shoppers-richer-than-...

[1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-costco-sams-club-shopper...

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#459

Post by lanthissa » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

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.

i mean its a value exchange, the last mile matters a ton to the consumer, the value prop the average person gets from amazon vs shopping in 2000 is insane and scales up the more valuable your time is.

Not only are prices good, but if i lose my remote or need a shovel for the winter or whatever in 2000 im going to a store for that, that 15m of my time each way+parking+less choice.

Lets say i make $50 an hour, and lets say i value my free time at my working rate (i'd argue most people by definition value it more or they'd be working more hours).

Saving me 10m in the store 15m of driving both ways and 2-3m of transit is worth more than most items i purchase.

Amazons solved the last mile problem by having one vehicle bring each item to each home so its marginal cost of delivery is the distance between each home instead of the round trip between home and return that a customer has.

The more items you buy at one store the less valuable this is, which is part of why costco is well served by having such large product sizes.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#460

Post by paulddraper » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:21 PM UTC

imoverclocked wrote: post #86

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…

I go to Costco when I have something else to do in the area; It's almost never a "trip to Costco" for me. Others have mentioned the parking lot sizes. If we wanted the best of both worlds, we could have online shopping at Costco with curbside delivery. There has to be a warehouse somewhere which means there are trucks/trains/planes moving goods around regardless. Even Amazon builds warehouses closer to where things n…

> Finally, Costco delivers

Yes, via a service called Instacart.

You can transform anything the Amazon last-mile model if you want to.