Costco is the anti-Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#541

Post by mattmaroon » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

ssl-3 wrote: post #401

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.

> a functional website It works for me. Am I holding it wrong? > let me scan and pay with my phone in store That's already beginning to happen: https://www.cheapism.com/costco-scan-and-go-technology/ > have a handheld scanner at each register I've seen handheld scanners at each Costco register that I've ever paid attention to.

Costcos give a scanner to the person running the self checkouts, not to the customer, so you have to wait for them to come over. They are very attentive usually but still. (Perhaps this isn’t the case at all of them but I’ve seen it several times in various states.)

Their website/app makes it impossible to just see what’s in store at what price. Go search for coca cola and I see the price to have it delivered (much higher than in store) and a link to instacart. No pickup options or even prices.

On Sams Club’s website I can see that in store price and order it for pickup.

Again, Costco could keep the things we all like and just have basic 2018 functionality, it isn’t hard.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#542

Post by DeluluDon » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

frrlpp wrote: post #481

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You clearly have no family

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#543

Post by antisthenes » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #439

antisthenes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

999/1000 times if you track the package, it was going ground on a freighter.

That price is generally way too low to include air mail.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#544

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

frrlpp wrote: post #481

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You clearly have no family

yeah, I think people come at this from very different life expectations. It is hard to take a toddler, a weeks groceries, and 50lb bag of dog food on a bike or bus.

Living without a car is easily possible, lots of parts of europe do it. They do it by living in small aparments, consuming less with more staples

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#545

Post by nnevod » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

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…

I suppose for the absolute majority of use cases, much less SKUs have to be present at store with immediate availibility for purchase, and the rest could be ordered online with delivery to the walkable store, resulting in efficient delivery and little effort required from customer, which isn't bad from health perspective.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#546

Post by LearnYouALisp » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #501

mike50 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be astoturfed or something. There is literally a Costco in Manhattan and several in suburban Queens and Staten Island. Nothing stops you from going to Costco and just getting a cab back for a once a month trip.

The idea of Amazon astroturfing an HN thread to get more retail customers.

I mean did you see the completely unironic thread where discussors were mentioning "$50 Tees" as the lowest acceptable end of quality?

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#547

Post by spike021 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

0x457 wrote: post #199

dpark wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go within an hour or so of opening. Hah. It’s such a PITA that Costco includes an hour earlier entry on the top tier membership.

I regularly shop at Costco and its usually one of five which ever is more convenient at the time. In all of my experience with Costco there is exactly one that has shitty parking, the rest are fine. That is if you have enough wrinkles in your brain to notice that in front of the store there 10 cars waiting for spot and parking a little bit in a back is easier. I often see people cruising around still looking for park…

I park in the back any time I go to Costco. the locations nearest to me are always packed to the brim. even the sort of "secret" extra spots that are behind the building and could be considered employee spots.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#548

Post by spike021 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

baby_souffle wrote: post #59

spike021 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ample parking? Not at any locations in my area. Even on weekdays.

Go within an hour or so of opening. I used to work right across the st from one and would spend most of my shift looking out at their parking lot and you could see it get more packed throughout the day, thin out a little bit in the early afternoon and then slowly drain towards closing. It's always least crowded right at open and then an hour (? or maybe two?) later they open for the "regular" people and once that's t…

My local locations are busy even during those times. it's a constant battle.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#549

Post by NavinF » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:17 PM UTC

windowsrookie wrote: post #421

NavinF wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon already gives a discount if you're willing to wait for them to batch deliveries. Personally I would still have an order arriving every other day regardless of walkable/bikeable infrastructure. Same as most Americans.

"most americans" absolutely do not have "an order arriving every other day". I order amazon on average once every 3 weeks. My mother (who has full time career and is under 60 years old) has never used amazon. Other members of my family also seem to rarely use amazon. Also, having an order arriving every other day is incredibly wasteful.

No it's not. There's an Amazon truck on my street every day. Adding one more package to that truck costs ~nothing. That's why free shipping is free.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#550

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

antiframe wrote: post #298

cortesoft wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't seeing the entire picture, though, so it makes it hard to understand the efficiency calculation. How full are those Amazon trucks, and how many deliveries are they each making on their route? If those Amazon trucks are all full, and are making deliveries constantly along their routes, than more trucks doesn't mean less efficiency. They aren't optimizing for "fewest truck trips to the block", they are optim…

> If those Amazon trucks are all full, and are making deliveries constantly along their routes, than more trucks doesn't mean less efficiency. Right but a truck could be full of not 100 packages for 100 houses, but 100 packages for 70 houses. Both are full, but one will require fewer miles driven, hence be more (fuel/environmental impact) efficient (not necessarily time efficient).

> Both are full, but one will require fewer miles driven

That isn't really true, though, because these houses exist in the real world and aren't just buckets to be visited.

Your conclusion would only be true if houses are all equidistant from the warehouse. That truck with the 100 packages for 70 houses is going to have to drive by more than just 70 houses to complete its route. It would not add additional fuel or miles to stop at those houses while it goes.