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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#531

Post by ktosobcy »

> One brilliant feature of the Costco experience is, paradoxically, the constraint: as opposed to Amazon, with its near infinite assortment, or even Walmart, which has approximately 130,000 SKUs (stock keeping units, or distinct items) in the average Supercenter, any given Costco will only hold 4,000 SKUs to choose from.

I live in Spain now and over here we have Mercadona as a "low cost market" and they do basically the same thing - limited selection of mostly in-house brands.

At first I was stlightly annoyed by it but over time it turned out that it's kinda preferred way -- indeed I waste less time hunting for The Brand and just The Item I need. And most of the time quality is on pair (or better) while costing less…

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#532

Post by Insanity »

mike50 wrote: post #486
Insanity wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Personally owned folding shopping carts exist.

Used to do this in Belgium. Still less convenient than driving, and kinda annoying to use during a Canadian winter.

And again, more limited space.

I commute by walking (1h per day) and typically avoid the car when possible, but for groceries there’s just no way I’d go back to walking to and fro.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#533

Post by Insanity »

oblio wrote: post #437
Insanity wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You definitely need infrastructure for that. Biking infrastructure in North American cities is.. not great. Definitely viable in some of the EU ones though.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#534

Post by justsid »

windowsrookie wrote: post #489
fragmede wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the rush? Why even plan? Just go in and wander around without a mission.

Interesting how people view shopping at Costco differently. My goal is to spend the least amount of time as possible in there.

This thread was similarly eye opening to me. But it explains why that store is always packed, apparently people just do weekend trips to Costco.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#535

Post by chihuahua »

bellgrove wrote: post #56
oa335 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. Costco exemplifies american dream... recent immigrants perusing well-stocked aisles, friendly employees, ample parking, cheap tasty hot dogs, etc.

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.

"the absolute worst shopping experience I can think of"

Indeed:

* Short opening hours

* checking the membership card at the entrance

* cell phone salesmen inside

* item locations change randomly

* items randomly disappear for weeks at a time, as if Leonid Brezhnev was in charge of restocking

* waiting at the exit for someone to check your receipt

* for a while, they'd check your receipt at the self-checkout and then check it again at the exit

* 1970s level IT, inaccurate inventory information

Microsoft used to give a cash bonus for patents; I imagine Costco has a bonus program for new ideas to make the shopping experience worse. Some ideas:

* throw lit firecrackers into the crowd

* pour oil on the floor so people slip

* complete darkness inside the store

* every 10th person at the checkout has their credit card cut into pieces

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#536

Post by lynndotpy »

alanbernstein wrote: post #123
claw-el wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, so is the home delivery. It is usually a delivery truck full of packages for nearby addresses.

Right, 100 trucks delivering 100 single items to 100 homes, or 100 consumers each making 1 trip to buy 100 things. It really depends on the details too much to simplify it so far.

Just anecdotally, I think the typical Costco trip is alongside trips someone would have taken already.

Go to work, take a 5 minute detour to stop by Costco for your prescriptions, gas, and groceries on the way back

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#537

Post by pandaman »

Amezarak wrote: post #259
titanomachy wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing wrong with your way, it’s just a different lifestyle based on how dense of a community you live in. People living in apartments in dense cities don’t have room for a whole cow in their apartment, but there’s probably a few grocery stores in walking distance, so they pick up food more often. Living in a suburb means that you probably don’t walk by a grocery store on your way home from work, and you pro…

Well, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no reason I can’t go to the store every day - I pass right by a lot of grocery stores. I don’t want to go in them or even think about buying stuff any more than I have to - it’s tedious. I want to always have almost everything I’d want on-hand. I think the the GP would love this too if it was practical- but it’s not for him. I’d be more interested in hearing the exact reasons…

I remember seeing pictures from a real estate listing of some euro prince house: he did not have a dryer, just a tiny washer under the counter in the single bathroom, the kitchen had just three-four cabinet sections and an apartment size fridge, no pantry and no closets of any kind, he just had IKEA-level dressers in the bedrooms and mini-split A/C on the wall. You can't really store much food or anything in there w/o turning it into a hoarder house. And this is a royalty house, I imagine common people's apartments are not going to be roomier.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#538

Post by beAbU »

kakacik wrote: post #387
beAbU wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bodega is often (and usually unavoidably) more expensive than a bigger grocery retail chain that's further away. Price conscious buyers will opt to drive to the bigger, farther away store because it has more variety, and the essentials are cheaper. I know I do this.

Everybody does this, unless its 10pm on Saturday and you are thankfully kissing the hand of bodega owner for being open at such absurd hour

All grocery stores close at 10 here (Ireland) but yes you are right. My local centra, 1km away is used for cheese, milk and beer runs. Everything else I get at the big lidl 15km away.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#539

Post by pandaman »

moviet wrote: post #290

Has Amazon ever tried a curated, low-SKU section of the website? I guess that’s just the “Overall Pick.” For that is a large appeal of Costco. If I need a blanket, I can visit a Costco and buy their softest blanket with no hesitation. It will be around $20. If it’s bad, they have the most generous return policy.

Costco is not only curating the selection: most products you buy there are created specifically for Costco, even if it's not the "Kirkland" brand, it's an SKU you cannot find elsewhere. Amazon would need to figure out the process of creating such products first and I see it's been trying: there are "amazon basics" brand products and even house brands ("Denali", I think, is Amazon's tool brand). The problem is that unlike Costco, Amazon cannot offer much to the suppliers of such products. Costco gives a limited shelf space in their high traffic stores in exchange for a discount and warranty. What can Amazon? Only thing I see is "amazon basics" being a bit more valuable than the brands like GOOLOO or MEPTY.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#540

Post by andrewljohnson »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #355
andrewljohnson wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bin packing is theoretically NP Hard but practically solved all the time on real world datasets.

Yeah but NP Hard bin packing doesn't usually include situations where a flat screen TV squished on top of pallets comes sliding out of the truck when you go to unload... Breakage results.

This sounds like a constraint I model in my bin packing optimization routine.
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