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Costco is the anti-Amazon

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Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#91

Post by imoverclocked »

newaccountman2 wrote: post #70
Loudergood wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this argument falls flat on it's face. Of course it's more complex than that. When I worked from the office, centralized retail was very convenient and hardly added any driving. If you work from home, the opposite is true. The next revolution would be to standardize reusable packaging, that same daily delivery truck could bring that back. But only government could make that happen.

I could imagine Amazon incentivizing reusable containers on their own TBH. If I was living in a house and not an apartment, I could easily imagine putting the Amazon bins back out so the next time I get a delivery, they take those, and we are constantly cycling bins back and forth. Even environment aside, from a purely self-interested perspective, I would much prefer it to dealing with the recycling Amazon deliveries…

"Amazon bins" ... or maybe just reusable bins that aren't specific to a company? See: shipping containers. A standard bin for home delivery could still have "Amazon" painted on it but the rest of the infrastructure wouldn't be Amazon specific.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#92

Post by claw-el »

colechristensen wrote: post #88
claw-el wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, in the photo, it shows a huge car park. The stores, have to support large empty spaces for parking of those 100 people all driving to the store. I also wonder about the social value of utilizing the land that way.

It's quite efficient use of land. Costco parking lots tend to be full, people tend to leave Costco with full carts and go once or twice a month. Direct to consumer warehouses should be encouraged not discouraged by the environmental social use advocate kinds of people. It results in fewer miles driven and more being done per mile driven. Each parking space gets more done per parking space. There's less retail worker…

This is in comparison to the delivery center methodology by e commerce where the land use for delivery driver is somewhere further away from what is needed for community events, and every delivery truck is filled to the brim, way more full than what each consumer vehicle would be filled up with?

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#93

Post by ghaff »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #61
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.

It’s also amazing how bad delivery services are in general. The incentives for third party delivery services don’t align well with the other parties. A retailer is judged on the quality of delivery yet only amazon has seemed to realize this (queue incoming anecdotes about amazon screwing up delivery yet i’ve never had an issue getting a refund when it happens).

I think it probably depends too on what different people's living situations are. I have an exurban house with a large driveway and I've basically never had an issue with an Amazon delivery. (Yes, it can be late sometimes but I can track it and I'm usually not in a rush.)

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#94

Post by socalgal2 »

mmooss wrote: post #12

> To put it crudely, having someone in a Sprinter van deliver a recently-purchased toothbrush to your doorstep is simply not a universalizable action, from either a business or logistical standpoint. It is a modern feat that Amazon is capable of doing this, but that it can be done does not mean that it should, nor even that it can be done writ large. For most consumption, it is far more efficient for people to handle…

There's also the externalities. Costco effectively supports car infested surburbia which lots of people blame for a great many problems.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#95

Post by whatever1 »

borski wrote: post #80
whatever1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were targeting 60% margins in grocery they would be bankrupt. Retail has famously razor thin margins. But their cash flow came in handy when AWS needed 300B in cash for gpus. Nobody could lend them that amount.

I’m familiar with the margins in retail (my parents ran a retail store their entire lives). My point wasn’t that they don’t do a lot of volume; it’s that their retail business is not what’s driving their profit, and I don’t believe it’s growing. I wouldn’t be surprised (though have not looked) if DoorDash (with DashMart), Uber Eats (which does more than just food), and Instacart have eaten significantly into Amazon’s…

In the US last mile is super hard because of the super high wages. The only way to work around it is volume per delivery person.

If you do 2 deliveries per hour (like Uber Eats / door dash), you pay essentially $5/order (assuming a super low us wage of $10/hour and no equipment cost/ gas).

So no in the US, Amazon is not threatened by such delivery services.

Now if you go to China, the equation flips. Which is why Amazon failed completely.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#96

Post by troupo »

imoverclocked wrote: post #86
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…

I go to Costco when I have something else to do in the area; It's almost never a "trip to Costco" for me. Others have mentioned the parking lot sizes. If we wanted the best of both worlds, we could have online shopping at Costco with curbside delivery. There has to be a warehouse somewhere which means there are trucks/trains/planes moving goods around regardless. Even Amazon builds warehouses closer to where things n…

> There has to be a warehouse somewhere which means there are trucks/trains/planes moving goods around regardless.

Do you want an 18-wheeler truck to do your curb-side deliveries? Or a personal train?

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#97

Post by imoverclocked »

troupo wrote: post #96
imoverclocked wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to Costco when I have something else to do in the area; It's almost never a "trip to Costco" for me. Others have mentioned the parking lot sizes. If we wanted the best of both worlds, we could have online shopping at Costco with curbside delivery. There has to be a warehouse somewhere which means there are trucks/trains/planes moving goods around regardless. Even Amazon builds warehouses closer to where things n…

> There has to be a warehouse somewhere which means there are trucks/trains/planes moving goods around regardless. Do you want an 18-wheeler truck to do your curb-side deliveries? Or a personal train?

What?

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#98

Post by lemoncucumber »

frollogaston wrote: post #7

Costco is mostly food, clothes, furniture, other large things, and auto services, which generally you don't get from Amazon even if you aren't a Costco member. The points about less choice more apply to like Costco vs grocery stores or Walmart. And I do like Costco, similar low-choice reason I like Trader Joe's even though Costco is its own league.

The Trader Joe's model is an interesting comparison with the Costco model.

Similarities:

* Like you said, both have fewer choices than a conventional grocery store: if you want ketchup or peanut butter, there's only going to be one brand and one size.

* Both of them don't have scales at the registers: unlike at a conventional grocery store, nothing is sold by weight (which I'm sure provides another small efficiency gain).

* Both of them are cheaper than your typical grocery store.

Differences:

* I feel like Trader Joe's leans on store brand / white-labeling items more than Costco -- yes Kirkland Signature is a thing but Trader Joe's takes it further.

* The shopping experience is pretty different both in terms of the in-store experience and the quantities things are sold in.

* Costco requires a membership, Trader Joe's doesn't.

I wonder which elements of the two models would work best for a public grocery store.

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#99

Post by analog31 »

mock-possum wrote: post #72
claw-el wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, in the photo, it shows a huge car park. The stores, have to support large empty spaces for parking of those 100 people all driving to the store. I also wonder about the social value of utilizing the land that way.

Put solar panels over ‘em

Put the entire building over 'em. And solar panels over the building. The Target near my house is built on top of its parking lot. I don't have to cross an entire parking lot, dodging traffic, when I go there by bike or on foot. And it's on a bus line. What's not to like?

Re: Costco is the anti-Amazon

#100

Post by pizzafeelsright »

rr808 wrote: post #75

I dont like Costco, it epitomizes American over-consumption. Parking lot overflowing with oversized SUVs with people loading up oversized trolleys with food from food corporations to take back to their oversized fridges and storage basements.

Enforcing appropriate sized consumption is a terrifying thought.
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