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Love Song to Costco

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Re: Love Song to Costco

#71

Post by inferiorhuman »

kvark wrote: post #54
lbrito wrote: post #47

Haven't read the piece yet, but I definitely will - for a long time I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco. I recently joined because they have some good food that is hard or more expensive to find elsewhere, but that's about it. To me it's just a store. Outside of the US/Canada I've never seen people evangelize a store so much.

For me, it’s a modern equivalent of the soviet stores. There is no 10 kinds of everything, but the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price. Speaking more modern, it saves the mental effort of researching choices. Need something? Check Costco, buy if there, done. Of course there are negatives associated with them, too.

> the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price

I bought into the hype and got a Costco membership a few years back. One of the first things I went looking for was whole bean coffee (Peet's xmas roast). The local Costco had a bunch of coffee from Starbucks and Peets (meh quality to start) but only the painfully dark roasts and all of it was ground. Pre-ground coffee in bulk has a pretty limited use case (and relatively short shelf life).

Fast forward to last week and I went looking for a new fridge at Costco dot com. They prominently featured LG (ugh) and Samsung refrigerators. While some LG models seem to review pretty well I've never seen anyone say anything positive about Samsung, their service, or the serviceability of their appliances. I'm in the middle of dealing with a defective LG fridge and that's about the nicest thing I can say about LG's warranty and customer support.

Costco may have a permissive return policy and decent customer support but I would never blindly buy something without doing a bit of research just because it's at Costco. Especially with a big ticket item like a fridge I'd rather use my Amex anyhow.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#72

Post by caymanjim »

divbzero wrote: post #61

I’ve always had a gut feeling that Costco’s customers represent a broader swath of socioeconomic diversity than most other stores. Don’t know how true that is and would love to learn if there’s real data behind it.

Minor anecdotal evidence, but I live in a small semi-rural/semi-suburban town in NJ, and Costco appears to have a full cross-section of people. It does seem slightly more economically-diverse than the regular grocery and retail stores, in that you'll see a lot more rich people (by virtue of driving Porsches and Mercedes) at Costco than you will at Walmart.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#73

Post by crooked-v »

foogazi wrote: post #29
pm90 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theres billions of people. Why aren't their countries desirable as well? Because whenever they have political systems that promote stability or justice, those leaders are overthrown in favor of those who will obey diktaks of the IMF/World Bank/WTO which generally promote privatization and wealth concentration. So other countries are desirable but have low social/economic mobility.

> Because whenever they have political systems that promote stability or justice, those leaders are overthrown in favor of those who will obey diktaks of the IMF/World Bank/WTO simplistic reasoning, but IMF was funded in 1945 - what’s your explanation for the previous 20 centuries?

You may want to look up the history of European colonization of most of the world.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#74

Post by inferiorhuman »

gnicholas wrote: post #21
W-Stool wrote: post #7

In 2005 my wife and I lived in a part of the USA that had no Costco within a half day's drive. We soon secured jobs in a part of the USA that had two (two!) Costcos in the same city that we would live. True story - before we even looked for housing, I went online and joined Costco. Years later my diabetic cat even had a Costco pharmacy account (best place to buy insulin by far) and received a discount for being witho…

> Years later my diabetic cat even had a Costco pharmacy account (best place to buy insulin by far) and received a discount for being without health insurance. IIRC, you don't need a membership to: • shop at the pharmacy • buy alcohol • eat at the food court I believe the first two are due to govt regulations, and may only apply in certain states. It's also much easier for anyone to shop at Costco with a spouse's/fri…

> eat at the food court

That changed a couple years back.

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Costco-food-court-me...

Re: Love Song to Costco

#75

Post by grapeskin »

lbrito wrote: post #47

Haven't read the piece yet, but I definitely will - for a long time I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco. I recently joined because they have some good food that is hard or more expensive to find elsewhere, but that's about it. To me it's just a store. Outside of the US/Canada I've never seen people evangelize a store so much.

I was a member for 2 years, although outside of the US.

The store is mostly US/UK/Australian imports of questionable quality, prices far higher than local goods (which is to be expected when shipped long distance for one specific chain), and questionable desirability (e.g. sauces not used much in local cuisine, of far lower quality than local brands, in containers far larger while also more expensive per gram). Products Americans would want from home are also almost non-existent. So it caters to nobody.

I think it had a lot of novelty at first since it's a very "American" thing and kind of a fun trip, but I'm not sure of the longterm viability. There's only so much you can do with a store that sells oversized budget-brand ketchup at luxury prices and stale jars of nuts.

Never visited while I was living in the US, but I doubt it could beat Winco. Bulk, low prices, often local, and no BS membership fees.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#76

Post by inferiorhuman »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #14
W-Stool wrote: post #7

In 2005 my wife and I lived in a part of the USA that had no Costco within a half day's drive. We soon secured jobs in a part of the USA that had two (two!) Costcos in the same city that we would live. True story - before we even looked for housing, I went online and joined Costco. Years later my diabetic cat even had a Costco pharmacy account (best place to buy insulin by far) and received a discount for being witho…

I have a Costco account and a Sam's Club (Walmart's Costco equivalent) account. Even though I do something like 98% of my bulk shopping at Sam's club (due to proximity, the Costco is ~ 15 min drive away vs 5 mins for the Sam's club), it's still worth it for me to hold the Costco membership for specific purchases. Notably I've purchased (because there's no better place to buy these things and the vendor vetting is ama…

> when it comes to a $4,000 gazebo or some $2,000 appliance I have really come to trust Costco's vetting.

How does that jive with selling Samsung (and LG) appliances? Samsung is easily the worst appliance manufacturer in North America across pretty much any appliance. LG's not too much better but supposedly their dryers and front load washers are decent.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#77

Post by insightcheck »

divbzero wrote: post #61

I’ve always had a gut feeling that Costco’s customers represent a broader swath of socioeconomic diversity than most other stores. Don’t know how true that is and would love to learn if there’s real data behind it.

Business Insider hired an analytics firm named Numerator to create a report that finds on the average Costco customer [0]. I couldn't find the original data or report in Business Insider's summary, but from its article:

"Numerator found that Costco's typical shopper in the US is an Asian American woman between 35 and 44 years old who is married and living in a city in the Pacific Northwest. (Costco was founded in Seattle and is based in Washington.) She typically has a four-year degree or higher level of education and earns more than $125,000 a year."

I'm not sure whether the income of the "typical shopper" was defined based on a median or mode, so there could well be a large variance of customers with a lower socioeconomic status. A separate article by Investopedia [1] also asserts that Costco mostly opens stores in affluent suburban areas, and originally targeted college-educated and financially wealthier customers.

So, Costco's customers are likely skewed to have a higher socioeconomic status, based on the location of most of its stores in wealthier suburban areas and findings from an analytics report (with some skepticism towards the article about the report, as the raw data and methods weren't shared, as far as I could see).

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-costco-shopper-demog...

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/061516/whats-...

Re: Love Song to Costco

#78

Post by brewdad »

atlgator wrote: post #22

I wish Costco still had early entry for elderly and disabled. That was really nice during the pandemic.

Somewhere there's a grandma that still has a garage full of toilet paper thanks to getting in the door early.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#79

Post by walrus01 »

karlding wrote: post #45
ortusdux wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alcohol restriction is at the state level, so some stores do require a membership. Namely : Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Texas, & Vermont have laws that ban requiring memberships for the purchase of alcohol. IIRC, Costco's lobbiests played a large role in Washington's privatization of liquor sales, and the final law did not include such…

I think the break even point for the upgrade is actually $3k/year, not $2k/year? The standard Gold Star Membership costs $60/year, and the Gold Star Executive Membership costs $120/year [0]. This is an additional $60/year (ignoring sales tax, etc.). In order to break even, you need to earn at least $60 using the 2% cash back from the Executive Membership in order to cover the upgrade. This works out to ($60/year) / 0…

The standard $60 a year membership can pay for itself fairly quick just in gasoline price savings (often 20c or more better than other local stations) if you happen to frequently drive along a freeway that has a Costco on your route.

Can easily be a $8 per tank difference.

Re: Love Song to Costco

#80

Post by rdl »

gnicholas wrote: post #21
W-Stool wrote: post #7

In 2005 my wife and I lived in a part of the USA that had no Costco within a half day's drive. We soon secured jobs in a part of the USA that had two (two!) Costcos in the same city that we would live. True story - before we even looked for housing, I went online and joined Costco. Years later my diabetic cat even had a Costco pharmacy account (best place to buy insulin by far) and received a discount for being witho…

> Years later my diabetic cat even had a Costco pharmacy account (best place to buy insulin by far) and received a discount for being without health insurance. IIRC, you don't need a membership to: • shop at the pharmacy • buy alcohol • eat at the food court I believe the first two are due to govt regulations, and may only apply in certain states. It's also much easier for anyone to shop at Costco with a spouse's/fri…

Just get someone to give you Costco gift cards; you can then enter the store with that gift card, and use other payment mechanism for the balance of purchase.
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