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The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

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Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#51

Post by WrongAssumption »

Arrath wrote: post #34
someluccc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only housing could be more expensive

I find it curious that people generally applaud Costco for paying good wages to their workers yet don't extend that consideration to those who build the stores. Is it latent classism? Disdain for tradespeople? Is outsourcing bad when it comes for office jobs, but good when it shaves a few percent off of the final $/ft2?

I’m struggling to think of a form of classism that ranks retail workers over trades people. Can you elaborate?

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#52

Post by breakbread »

throwup238 wrote: post #43
ericd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk pack of medical care you’ll need soon might kill the savings.

Nothing bulk gummy multivitamins and semaglutide can't solve. Costco even sells an MCT supplement that doubles as the best massage oil and lube I’ve ever used.

Now I’m imagining a Costco acropolis. One membership for literally all your needs. Never leave Costco

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#53

Post by Arrath »

WrongAssumption wrote: post #51
Arrath wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it curious that people generally applaud Costco for paying good wages to their workers yet don't extend that consideration to those who build the stores. Is it latent classism? Disdain for tradespeople? Is outsourcing bad when it comes for office jobs, but good when it shaves a few percent off of the final $/ft2?

I’m struggling to think of a form of classism that ranks retail workers over trades people. Can you elaborate?

Just anecdotes or vibes, having been on both sides of that one. I'd call it more of an "indoor" vs "outdoor" work dichotomy, honestly.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#54

Post by m463 »

modeless wrote: post #25

Costco is great but their parking lots are awful. I hope the housing has a separate parking entrance because fighting Costco shoppers every time I leave home sounds like a nightmare.

But when will you have to leave home?

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#55

Post by dano »

acchow wrote: post #33
meragrin_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their unique advantages What are those? I never really found any sort of "unique advantage" of Costco. Certainly nothing to drive the extra distance past Sam's. While I had a membership, it was largely more expensive or didn't have what I wanted.

Every product at Costco is vetted or experimental. Either way, you’ll always be happy because if you don’t like it they have their eternal refund policy (refund at any time without a time limit) The product return rates are also tied to customer data (membership scanning is required to pay). The better return data allows them to make better decisions on which products to boot.

They changed the return policy on some items to 90 days. Electronics comes to mind.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#56

Post by Turing_Machine »

happyopossum wrote: post #31

> It will also result in housing that looks like a stack of shipping containers. This is an either temporally or willfully ignorant statement - prefabricated housing hasn’t had to look like a boring box in decades. I’ve been involved in prefab projects where you couldn’t tell the on-site builds from the prefabs. Also there’s an elevation rendering of the project that clearly isn’t ’a stack of shipping containers’.

> prefabricated housing hasn’t had to look like a boring box in decades.

Arguably all the way back to Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion house, nearly a hundred years ago.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#57

Post by jerlam »

I like Costco but I feel that living next to it wouldn't be significantly better than living a bit farther away. It's a place where people with larger homes can buy in bulk and save time and money by storing those bulk items in their homes. There is no good reason to go to Costco more frequently than you can use up those bulk items, or until they expire. Gas and pharmacy would be borderline.

I live within walking distance of a nice grocery store and would definitely prefer that over a Costco. There are more hot food items than just a hot dog and two types of pizza. It's easy to pick up a small amount of fresh ingredients to make a meal at the last minute.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#58

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

ozuly wrote: post #4

I'm continuously impressed by Costco. Not only is it one of my favorite places to shop, but I also recently recent to the Acquired episode on Costco[0] and was super impressed by how they run their business. They've continuously been able to align their unique advantages to reenforce each other and make their advantages even stronger. I highly recommend this episode to everyone. [0] https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/c…

They also treat their employees well. (Not with free food or other so-called "tech" company nonsense). I have been impressed with the people from Costco I have met at conferences.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#59

Post by matthewdgreen »

Dalewyn wrote: post #24
meragrin_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their unique advantages What are those? I never really found any sort of "unique advantage" of Costco. Certainly nothing to drive the extra distance past Sam's. While I had a membership, it was largely more expensive or didn't have what I wanted.

As a consumer, the advantage to Costco is they've done the product filtering for you. You can reasonably bet that whatever Costco has is in the upper echelons of good within that product category. Costco also ends up being cheaper if you do enough shopping there, because Costco's low prices are realized by the membership fees comprising the lion's share of their revenue. As a merchant, Costco is significantly more ef…

All of these things are true. But the real advantage of Costco is that they’ve been consistent in their strategy for years. Having built a loyal customer base by offering high-quality products at reasonable prices, they haven’t shifted gears to raise prices or fill their stores with garbage products and coast on their brand recognition. This is shockingly unusual in today’s (US) economy.

Re: The Costco of Housing is Costco? The retailer's plan to use CA housing laws

#60

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

So a standard mixed-used development but with certifications of how wonderful and eco-friendly they are allows throwing out most regulations everyone else has to follow, creating a preferential, tiered system. That sounds fair and respectful of community interests. /s
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