Whats the big deal about Costco?

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Originally Posted By: Tdbo
I have both a Costco membership and a Sams Business card.
My favorite is Costco hands down.
Costco is clean, well managed, has help that is actually helpful and their products tend to be more upscale and a good value.
If I do nothing else than go in and buy their OTC Allergy medication, it costs me as much for a year's supply than buying it retail ($15 for a year supply vs.$15 monthly, saving me $165/yr.) If I quit there, I've saved money
, but tend to buy staple items (butter/cooking oil/olive oil to name several) at lower cost and sometimes better quality. Their pharmacy department tends to have good prices as well.
If I need gas while I am there, I will fill up and take the .20 price differential savings on a Saturday when we have a Speedway incident on a Thursday morning.
I do need to examine why I have a Sams membership, however.


Exactly, you have hit it on the nail,
Costco have better quality groceries - Yeap,
Costco: Organic chicken breast at $4/lb
Sams Club: Chicken Breast at $1.79/lb

The ONLY reason I still have sams is that they have better prices and REGULAR stuff that I want to buy and not forced to buy. Sams employees where in West Michigan are bleeping RUDE.
The managers are somewhat contributing to the behavior. but I still take in the [fill in the blank] cuz I love my $$$ more ;-).

Costco are clean cuz they don't have half the member as Sams does. Costco members on average spend more like on their organic bees wax.

I really don't like the costcos strategy of catering to the niche of wine drinking, organic animal cracker eating, VW driving consumer. But time will tell if their strategy will yield longterm leadership in the sector.

FYI: Costco is the BIGGEST retailer of wine in US.

Wages: I am sorry I did not want to start an argument, pls educate yourself. Google is your friend here. I stated a fact, if I am mistaken research it and post it.

Take the Costco vs sams challenge: take pics of regular grocery/household items price tag which has the PER UNIT price and post it here.
 
Originally Posted By: BikeWhisperer
Yes, if you spend hours shopping around from store to store I'm sure you can feel like you save some $$ over Costco. Of course that is not taking into account your time and cost of running from place to place.

Costco has a lot of what my family needs for bulk items in one place. Their employees are some of the friendliest of any place I shop, probably because they get paid a living wage and benefits instead of minimum wage and food stamps. Despite the volume of people coming in and out, check out never takes more than 10 minutes. Gas is Top Tier and yet cheaper than anyone else by $0.10 a gallon. And to top it off, I like their hot dogs.

But hey, if you don't agree then just don't shop there...


I don't shop at Costco and spend less on top tier gas and everything else than I would at Costco.
I do have the hardship of spending maybe five minutes a week online finding the deals on meat, fish, poultry and produce and I may sometimes drop an extra dime on toilet paper, but I pay no membership fee for this.
I always take thirty seconds to check GasBuddy when I need fuel, and Costco is almost never the cheapest top-tier source, and there isn't a Costco close to my normal commute anyway.
Costco and its ilk are relics of an earlier age, when it wasn't possible to compare prices for anything you buy in seconds.
Today, there are better quality, cheaper options for the net-savy shopper.
As I worte in the post to which you replied, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but membership retailers are probably a dying business model.
Too many net-savy consumers out there.
 
Meh, neither I nor my dog Wicket find the 55 lbs sack of dog food all that appealing. Inexpensive groceries can be found at the local Chinese and Mexican markets, or at a place like Grocery Outlet and Smart&Final. The latter is where I buy bulk items like soap and laundry detergent twice a year. Not interested in the 12 pound can of ravioli. Smart&Final used to have a free membership card, but they put away with it years ago.

hotwheels
 
Costco gas is usually cheaper than the regular station.

Designer jeans are about 50 percent off of mall prices.

I have never had one bad product from costco.

I agree, there is a lot of stuff that is not cheaper than walmart or whatever, but that is not the point. Their stuff is better.

Dish detergent, washing detergent all good.

Meats are excellent quality.
 
Originally Posted By: Stewart Fan
Originally Posted By: Indydriver
Costco is about the only place I shop in person. To address some of the common misperceptions expressed here by non-members...

1. Membership fee: this is refunded annually (and then some) if you are a regular shopper.
2. Crowds: get there when they first open on Saturday morning (9:30). I'm in and out before lines form at the checkout.
3. Prices: consistently the best on beer, wine, fresh fruit, dairy, cleaning supplies, paper goods, motor oil (when on sale every quarter) and windshield washer fluid, OTC pharma, health and beauty supplies, water softener salt, printer
consumables (paper and inks). Meat is competitive and of high quality. Same for electronics which include an exclusive extra year of warranty. Gas is competitive to often many cents lower, particularly in a price rising environment (they are slow to change both up and down). Don't forget, your Costco card Am Ex gets you an additional 3% off--that's another $.07 at $2.30 folks.



You've summed it all up nicely.

I love Costco.



Let's not forget that the business relationship between Costco and AMEX ends in about 12 months. What the new deal will be with their new credit card vendor remains to be seen.

AMEX walked away from Costco because their deal wasn't profitable and they wanted new terms but couldn't come to a new agreement with Costco.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27


I don't shop at Costco

membership retailers are probably a dying business model

Too many net-savy consumers out there.

I'm glad they have a membership fee. It keeps "net savy" [sic] coupon-clipping bottom feeders out of there.
 
I've never understood the polarity of feelings about Costco, this thread included.

On the anti side, you typically see the following arguments (I didn't read the whole thread, but I'd suspect they are all represented somewhere in it):

1) I'm not paying to enter a store.
2) No one is checking my reciept when I leave a store.
3) No one needs a case of anything, it just makes them fat. Or it spoils.
4) I can find better deals than Costco if I read coupons and drive around to get them.

I'll admit to being a Costco fanboy. A lot of that is because of how my local store treats customers. I've never had an interaction with a Costco employee that wasn't pleasant. A couple months ago, a blu-ray player I bought over a year ago started experiencing some issues. I first called the manufacturer, and got the whole "well you can send it in to our repair center, no guarantees, and we'll need a copy of the reciept, and you are going to pay for x,y, and z.". It was a generally unpleasant call to a call center that was clearly outsourced somewhere. I couldn't find my receipt, so went to Costco to get a duplicate. I told them why I needed it and the response was "just bring it in, we'll just return it and issue you a refund." And they did. That impressed me a lot. Try to do that at Target or WalMart. Around here, Target won't even do returns without a receipt.

Gas is consistantly 2-3 cents cheaper than other stations around here. And as far as the membership fee, I have an executive membership and have always gotten back more than my membership fee at the end of the year. I think we've been members for at least five years now.

I'll acknowledge that if you are one of those people that like to watch coupons and hit multiple stores to get the best deals, than you'll beat Costco prices on those items. They don't do loss leaders, so you can always find a special at some store that will beat something at Costco. But I think if you average out costs over time, Costco will win. There's huge savings in medicines for example - if I bought my kid's allergy medicine at Walgreens it is exactly twice the price for the same amount of zyrtec. That in itself pays for the membership over the course of a year.
 
I agree with others who say Costco's meat is excellent. In my area they routinely have choice boneless sirloin steaks, which normally aren't that great for grilling, but the ones they have at out local Costco are by far the best steaks for the money in my area. They melt in your mouth and they're $5.99/lb, with hardly any fat/waste.
 
Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
I agree with others who say Costco's meat is excellent. In my area they routinely have choice boneless sirloin steaks, which normally aren't that great for grilling, but the ones they have at out local Costco are by far the best steaks for the money in my area. They melt in your mouth and they're $5.99/lb, with hardly any fat/waste.

Drew,
sweet, I will try the sirloin, I don't even go by those freezers.
I buy meat from a local orthodox greek butcher.
 
The big plump and juicy rotisserie chickens for $4.99 at Costco are wonderful. Any other stores (Walmart, Sprouts, Stater Bros...) rotisserie chickens look like game hens for $7 - $8.

My wife loves Costco, and she will go there anytime. I hate Costco, and I will only go if I can get there at store opening or just before they close. It seems to be somewhat tolerable during those times at the local Costco here. Otherwise the parking lot is a sea of huge SUV's, trucks and mini-vans. And, the most inconsiderate pompous drivers you will ever see.

I guess it is the idea of being a "member" huff huff snoot snoot, of a private warehouse club that makes a lot of the shoppers at my local store, feel like they are members of an elite five diamond private society.

The big ego's are showed off by displaying who can be the rudest in the aisles, carelessly steering their flatbed carts into hitting other people and things. And blocking and an entire aisle for no reason what-so-ever. They never pull off to the side to do their thinking or nose picking; instead they will suddenly stop and just zone out, causing a bottle neck effect behind them. Sure they could pull off to the side a foot or two and let traffic continue as normal, but that would show weakness and politeness, and %#&@# forbid they should show either.

The same goes for their parking lot behaviors. They cannot be bothered to look while backing out of a parking space, or drive on their side of the aisle. They will speed up to purposely deny a pedestrian the right to walk cross an aisle to get to the sidewalk. They cannot be bothered to park more than 100 feet from the entrance of the store. They must hold up traffic by waiting for a shopper to exit the store and approach a car parked nearby, then wait for the shopper to unload a flatbed full of items. Ten minutes later, and a dozen cars waiting behind them, they finally park.

I have never experienced such large amounts of high-and-mighty behavior at any other retailer. Not even at high-end foo foo malls.

So, the big deal with Costco here seems to be: to be able to act like you are a member of an exclusive club and part of an elite society. Or, a place where one can let their big inflated fat head act like they are in a third world country where rules, commonsense, polite manners, and personal space do not exist. Or, a combo of both.

They might be nice people who just get carried away in their thoughts of having membership privileges, and thoughts of being an extra important person in society because they are granted access through the magical gates of a warehouse...who knows.

Wow, that's really how I feel about my local Costco. I guess I will stop going. Rant over.
 
Originally Posted By: Indydriver
Originally Posted By: fdcg27


I don't shop at Costco

membership retailers are probably a dying business model

Too many net-savy consumers out there.

I'm glad they have a membership fee. It keeps "net savy" [sic] coupon-clipping bottom feeders out of there.


All of Costco's shareholders thank you for this reply.
Everyone else is laughing.
 
In Canada the price of premium gas at Costco is a significant savings over the other major stations here. As an example, right now if I go to Shell it would cost me $1.21 per liter for premium, but at Costco it's $1.07! That is a massive savings, it works out to almost $10 less per tankful in my Corvette! And just like Shell, Costco's premium is ethanol free. In fact, Shell is the supplier for Costco fuel up here, so it's a very similar formula.

There are many other deals there that make it worth the price of membership as well, like they will often have 2L of chocolate milk for $1.95 (grocery stores charge $4-5!) and a year's supply of multivitamins are $12.99 (it would be almost double that price at Walmart) And their meat is very good, we often pick up their striploin steaks or pork tenderloin and are never disappointed.

Just like with any store you are shopping at, you need to know the prices at other places in order to know what's a good deal and what's not. But for the most part, Costco has incredible prices up here. I do hate the large crowds and I really really wish they would put in an express line for people like us who usually go in there and buy less than 10 items. It also bothers me that they don't accept Mastercard as I get 0.5% cash back with mine so I use it for almost every purchase I make. But I'm nitpicking there.
 
Just go shopping first thing in the morning and you will be fine.

Any retail store I always go early to avoid long lines and idiot customers.
 
Originally Posted By: Patman
In Canada the price of premium gas at Costco is a significant savings over the other major stations here. As an example, right now if I go to Shell it would cost me $1.21 per liter for premium, but at Costco it's $1.07! That is a massive savings, it works out to almost $10 less per tankful in my Corvette! And just like Shell, Costco's premium is ethanol free. In fact, Shell is the supplier for Costco fuel up here, so it's a very similar formula.

There are many other deals there that make it worth the price of membership as well, like they will often have 2L of chocolate milk for $1.95 (grocery stores charge $4-5!) and a year's supply of multivitamins are $12.99 (it would be almost double that price at Walmart) And their meat is very good, we often pick up their striploin steaks or pork tenderloin and are never disappointed.

Just like with any store you are shopping at, you need to know the prices at other places in order to know what's a good deal and what's not. But for the most part, Costco has incredible prices up here. I do hate the large crowds and I really really wish they would put in an express line for people like us who usually go in there and buy less than 10 items. It also bothers me that they don't accept Mastercard as I get 0.5% cash back with mine so I use it for almost every purchase I make. But I'm nitpicking there.



MasterCard is now the only credit card they accept.

I just used my BMO World Elite MasterCard there last week.
 
Originally Posted By: firemachine69


MasterCard is now the only credit card they accept.

I just used my BMO World Elite MasterCard there last week.


Now that is great news! I'm going to have to make a Costco run this weekend to try it out!
smile.gif
 
In general, I dislike Costco. Buy 4-5 items and it's more than $100. Forget about the quantity. Most goes bad before I can finish it off.

The only thing I like about Costco is the food court. Don't need a membership for that. I like their lamb too.
 
Originally Posted By: paulo57509
In general, I dislike Costco. Buy 4-5 items and it's more than $100. Forget about the quantity. Most goes bad before I can finish it off.


That's why you only buy the massive bulk items of things you will actually use up. Don't buy 10 pounds of mayo if you only make one sandwich a week!
smile.gif
Everybody needs things like toilet paper, fabric softener, dishwasher detergent, etc and those things never go bad.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: firemachine69
I just used my BMO World Elite MasterCard there last week.

That's the type of name that could give a conspiracy theorist a heart attack.
wink.gif




The girlfriend says I just like it for the shiney holofoil on it.
wink.gif
 
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