Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Costco is the anti-Amazon

phenomenalworld.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 610 posts

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#461

Post by Backslasher »

hk1337 wrote: post #422
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.

Avoiding a problem doesn't necessarily make the problem go away. A wise person knows when to avoid a problem and when to solve it.

I think the original biblical phrase was about getting out of a hole which you fell into, and in that domain it's always better to not fall into the hole.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#462

Post by __float »

newsoftheday wrote: post #440

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 pub…

Why do you need to visit Costco every week? This feels like the most inefficient combination of the city-style "shop small quantities often" and suburb-style "buy everything in bulk once a month".

> ...it may just be disguised political messaging article.

It doesn't seem to be particularly for or against the NYC proposal to me, so I don't understand why you are suggesting this.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#463

Post by the-grump »

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,…

As a member, the gas savings pay the annual fee, and I get my staples from Costco every few months. Peanut butter, paper towels, TP, tissues, and sometimes mushrooms and washed greens.

Everything else I'd rather get from my local grocery stores.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#464

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#465

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#466

Post by cm11 »

hk1337 wrote: post #422
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.

Avoiding a problem doesn't necessarily make the problem go away. A wise person knows when to avoid a problem and when to solve it.

I’ve struggled following this idea too and wondered if I’m missing something? There’s a (I assumed straightforward) implication that the wise person is often letting problems grow and/or enabling them.

It is resolved personally, which is valuable, but most of these things have a larger footprint than that making it a kind of self-prioritizing mindset. There’s some kind of math to the decision involving how much effort, how much personal or short term benefit, how much communal or long term cost. But the math isn’t neutral. So basically choosing to avoid problems is going to correlate with personally better and communally worse. The clever person might be doing the solving, making sacrifices for broader good, and is sabotaged.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#467

Post by alephnerd »

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.

They're shifting around 1,000 corporate roles from Issaquah to Hyderabad [0]. They're across the street from TJX and AMD [1].

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/us-retail-giant-costco-s...

[1] - https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/@1...

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#468

Post by testfoobar »

__float wrote: post #462
newsoftheday wrote: post #440

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 pub…

Why do you need to visit Costco every week? This feels like the most inefficient combination of the city-style "shop small quantities often" and suburb-style "buy everything in bulk once a month". > ...it may just be disguised political messaging article. It doesn't seem to be particularly for or against the NYC proposal to me, so I don't understand why you are suggesting this.

From families I know: food is the reason. Athletic teenagers consume a lot of calories. Proteins, fruits, and vegetables along with milk, eggs, cheeses and snacks are easy to buy in bulk at Costco. These items are replenished weekly.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#469

Post by rawgabbit »

__float wrote: post #462
newsoftheday wrote: post #440

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 pub…

Why do you need to visit Costco every week? This feels like the most inefficient combination of the city-style "shop small quantities often" and suburb-style "buy everything in bulk once a month". > ...it may just be disguised political messaging article. It doesn't seem to be particularly for or against the NYC proposal to me, so I don't understand why you are suggesting this.

Not the person you are replying to. I live near a Costco and it offers good value for money. I go there multiple times per week. I use their pharmacy which is very reasonable even without insurance. I buy fresh produce and eggs and milk and salmon. I get my tires rotated and balanced there. I also get my eyeglasses made there. Their food court is also something I can’t pass up.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#470

Post by testfoobar »

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,…

> "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, and buy vehicles that will fit it."

This is not reflective of the Costco shoppers I know and the place Costco fits in their lives.

Bi-Rite and Erewhon or Citarella and Eataly are not Costco competitors.

To understand the appeal of Costco to suburban families, you have to understand their caloric needs. Costco is the best solution if you need to buy 48 eggs and 4 gallons of milk a week along with 8lbs of chicken, 4lbs of turkey, and pounds of broccoli, green beans, spinach, sweet potatoes, onions accompanied with apples, peaches, mangos, avocados, blueberries, strawberries and oranges.

Post reply on HN