Somewhere I read a quote from some cranky business analyst complaining about how the low prices, quality products and high wages impact profits. "It's better to be a Costco customer or Costco employee than it is to be a Costco shareholder."
To which I responded "That sounds like a well run company!"
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 without health insurance.
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 amazing) bedsheets, smart thermostats & a sauna from Costco over the last year and those have easily made back the $60 USD it cost me to buy the membership. I'll probably end up buying a gazebo kit from Costco sometime in the next year.
I think for semi-big purchases ($USD 200 to $USD $20,000) as a consumer Costco has huge value. The vendor vetting thing may not be as important when it comes to a bag of chips, but when it comes to a $4,000 gazebo or some $2,000 appliance I have really come to trust Costco's vetting.
Costco also works out deals to sell “special” revisions of major brand offerings. One example is a Sony Bravia that has a physical microphone disable switch.
Though it's worth keeping in mind that they also have a lot of items with unique model numbers/SKUs that are actually entirely identical otherwise, to make it less obvious that the version at Costco is $X cheaper than the one available everywhere else.
If you are referring to the A80j model the Costco exclusive Bravia has a microphone disable switch because it has a microphone. The standard Bravia has no microphone at all.
> 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.
For my recent purchase, I looked at wirecutter as a starting point and bought from Costco. Also I got a 3rd party extended warranty (since you never know with water-using appliances).
According to Wirecutter (NYT): "If you’re a member, Costco offers the cheapest delivery and installation of the big national chains, you’ll get an additional year of warranty coverage for many products, and it will help you make warranty claims with the manufacturer."
Last time I shopped for a fridge (2 years ago, maybe) every single sales guy and maintenance guy I talked to at maybe 4 different stores said: “Never buy a Samsung.”
They all seemed to think that LG had gotten its act together, though. I ended up with an LG fridge.
I've currently got an LG fridge that's a year old. Everyone's said that this is one of their most reliable refrigerators and yet here I am with a 60° freezer. The nicest thing I can say is that the warranty process is hugely disjointed and parts are 2+ weeks out.
For a couple years I delivered and installed appliances for Lowe's. We brought back (ie customer returned) LG and Samsung just as much as Whirlpool and GE, even though we sold significantly less of the LG and Samsung appliances. I was told that the closest person able to service them was 250+ miles away. Also, LG and Samsung tended to scrap an entire new fridge for seemingly trivial stuff, such as an ice maker not working. I've never owned a LG or Samsung appliance but from the number of returns I've seen, I certainly wouldn't want a fridge or front load washer from either manufacturer.
> Samsung is easily the worst appliance manufacturer in North America
I don't know this firsthand but I too have seen a lot of this recently. Even before COVID. I am specifically thinking appliances like refrigerators, oven ranges, and washer/dryers. Maybe some microwave ovens.
Maybe Samsung just outsells everyone else making the problems more visible but it seems a lot of people love complaining about Samsung.
I'll pile on Samsung being absolute garbage. Same is true for GE and LG. Went through three fridges before the warranty ran out. Then just bit the bullet and bought a Bosch 800 and have had zero trouble since.
The TV will probably hold up just fine, other than the ads it will show if connected to the internet.
Samsung/LG appliances (washer/dryer, fridge, etc.) usually last 5 years or less. Whereas a quality appliance should last 10 years or more. My source on this is friends who work in the industry plus the experience of family members who bought LG/Samsung appliances anyway.
In addition to the manufacturer, the type of appliance and its manufacture date really matters. I have an LG front-loading washing machine from the late 2000s that has been working fine for 14 years with one minor circuit board replacement. My appliance repair guy says that LGs from that timeframe are very reliable. When the motor bearings on that washer go out, I'll have him replace the motor if OEM replacement motors are available rather than buy a new one.
Refrigerators are a completely different animal as are dishwashers, etc. Despite my great experiences with LG washers, I'd avoid LG refrigerators. I've had good experience with multiple Bosch and Miele dishwashers, but mediocre experiences on all the new fridges I've bought in the last 10 years.
Tangential but have been buying appliances for the first time and have been deep in research of what to do with a small-moderate budget.
I had indeed heard the same about Samsung, and more generally designed service lives < 7 years across brands with better reputations.
I elected to buy all used but (good condition) late-model Miele appliances. They’re rated at 20+ years, they focus on reliability and repairability, and if you’re patient you can get them for less than even the cheapest Samsung etc models, especially when taxes are taken into account.
Not to mention they’re the best quality appliances money can buy. I definitely don’t need a paella mode on my dishwasher, but it makes me smile every time (and remember I paid $200 for it)
It reminds me of the very popular Reddit thread from about a decade ago where a vacuum cleaner repair guy said that Miele's were his preferred vacuum and recommended them above most others: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1pe2bd/iama_vacuum_re...
> 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/friend's membership card now that they have self-checkout. You used to have to worry about the cashier flagging you if the cardholder wasn't there, but now there's no one who even looks at your card.
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 a restriction.
For those interested, the break even on a 2% cash back membership is at the $2k/year.
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) / 0.02 = $3k/year.
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.
Do you? None of the stuff we buy from Costco is cheaper compared with other local grocery stores. I mean, ignoring the hot dogs and rotisserie chicken, obviously.
Fun fact, if you get the upgraded membership and don't spend enough to make up the difference from the regular membership, they will refund you the difference if you ask.
So technically it doesn't make any sense to not get the premium membership as long as you're willing to float them the difference for a year.
Never seen it written down. They just told me once at customer service when I went to cash my rebate check and they noticed it was smaller than the membership price difference.
Unless something has changed recently, if you don’t make enough in cash back to cover the difference between the regular membership and the executive one, you can go by customer service and they’ll comp you the difference.
I think the 2% thing is a customer incentive thing, and not intended to be a profit center. And that doesn’t work as well if people feel like they’re gambling on whether they will make enough purchases to justify it, if they feel like losers in the end.
Just buying gasoline at Costco is more than enough to pay back the membership fee in California. It’s about 50¢/gallon cheaper than other fuel in the same city.
In Minnesota it is about $0.20 cheaper than the discount gas places.
I'd definately pay $2.60 more to avoid the crazy people jamming Costco's parking lots trying to get that 20 cents off. I've narrowly avoided many people going anywhere they could at ramming speed while I was visiting a neighboring business.
I now avoid their neighboring businesses on every weekend as I value my life and car to avoid that whole scene.
> I'd definately pay $2.60 more to avoid the crazy people jamming Costco's parking lots trying to get that 20 cents off.
It might have something to do with the age of their pumps. My Costco just put in new pumps and the long lines go really fast. I don’t know for sure what changed, but more people are tapping to pay now (or using the Costco keychain chip) and the pumps flow twice as fast than before. It has really made a noticeable difference. Before, I would spend 5-10 minutes in the line as well as pumping, and now it’s less than five minutes total when it’s busy.
Costco gas is also Top Tier branded, and I trust Costco to maintain their equipment and tanks and source better quality gas than other independently owned stations.
I used to think this. The Costco in Redwood City is a good deal compared to most stations, but the cheap station on Woodside Rd. (< 2 miles away) is basically the same price. It also never has long lines, which I often find at Costco.
I used to think it was false, and that the price drop wouldn’t pay for the extra distance to Costco, but times have changed since the invasion of Ukraine. It’s probably ___location dependent. I’m in Ventura County.
In Texas the Costcos have a liquor store that does not require a membership. But so far as I can tell, the alcohol sold in the Costco-proper likely does require a membership. Perhaps the presence of the liquor store satisfies the legal requirement.
In Texas, liquor (spirits) sales and non-spirits sales are different classes of licenses with different rules. Costco in Texas does NOT sell any spirits/liquor inside of the membership area, only beer, wine, and premixed cocktails (e.g. margarita in a bottle, which is made with agave wine not tequila anyway). The attached non-member liquor store is the only part which sells spirits, and as required by Texas law is open to the public without a membership.
Related to this, Texas also has "blue laws" which ended in 1985 other than the parts covering automotive dealers and liquor stores. So in Texas, liquor stores cannot be open on Sundays (nor can car lots). This is another reason Costco may be incentivized to not sell liquor within the member-only part of the store separately from the other requirements from TABC, because they are open on Sundays.
We have similar liquor/beer/wine laws in Georgia. Recently they did away with no sales on Sunday and some local “mimosa” brunch laws that allow restaurants to sell alcohol before 12:30. Good forbid someone drinking watching sports before church gets out.
Anyway, grocery stores will turn off the beer cooler lights on Sunday morning and put a note with the time they will be able to sell it.
Most liquor stores are actually opposed to repealing Sunday sale blue laws. They still sell the same volume, but have to stay open an extra day.
It's annoying, but I deal with it because my local liquor store only has two employees, and the wife is behind the register 12 hours a day 6 days a week. Sunday is the only time she gets off.
It's also worth knowing that you don't have to spend the "Cashback" voucher in the store, you can go to customer services and they'll give you actual cash instead! I just learned this after being a member for 14 years...
Georgia lets you buy liquor without a membership but it’s a separate store within a store that has its own entrance. Corporations and families are also limited to owning 2 liquor stores in the state so only 2 Costcos sell liquor.
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.
Realistically if you want to eat at the food court just walk backwards into the exit and be like "oh yeah I'm going to the pharmacy", most states have a law not allowing Costco to require membership for pharmacy, and the just go buy your food from the automated kiosk.
It’s not new and that strategy doesn’t always work. I tried to get a hotdog in SF in like 2014 and they wouldn’t let me through. When I asked about purchasing alcohol he said that was allowed but they would have an employee escort me to the liquor and then checkout to ensure I couldn’t go to the food court.
I've used the ATM at that Costco and nobody followed me or nagged me. But that ___location is right by a bunch of good places to get food so I've never tried to push my luck.
>It's also much easier for anyone to shop at Costco with a spouse's/friend's membership card now that they have self-checkout. You used to have to worry about the cashier flagging you if the cardholder wasn't there, but now there's no one who even looks at your card.
Or how about don't be a liar/cheater and buy your own membership. It's not expensive and it pays for itself fast. Shame on whoever does this.
I don’t know about the food court, but alcohol is definitely true for legal reasons in some states. In Connecticut our local Costco had its alcohol sales in a separate entrance next to the main warehouse, on the opposite end from the tire department.
To add another one, the same is true nationwide for their optometrists, you can get your eyes checked there without a membership but won’t be able to buy glasses. If you want a place to get your prescription without a hassle from the optometrist (who is legally required to give you the prescription but isn’t necessarily happy about that), Costco is a reliable option.
It's been a while since I was a member, but I remember being able to get my sister her own card attached to my account. I just gave the cashier her name and the next time she went in by herself she got her card.
Yeah. I almost think of Costco as a privatized utopian socialist mini-state. One should pay to be a good citizen. ... But then I've also thought it would be cool to build an app to help people organize trips to Costco from "food deserts" to split memberships and bulk-sized items and the bill.
Also, once on a trip to Hawaii with my wife and extended family I had my arm around my wife in the Costco checkout line. I mentioned that "it feels so good and so right." My wife was at first flattered and then realized I was talking about the universality of the Costco experience.
Related to the story's underlying topic, as an immigrant I find significant attitudinal/philosophical differences in how I regard saving money and spending money versus, for example, my American coworkers and friends, especially younger ones who grew up around relatively well-off families. Maybe the affection for Costco embodies that. I'm sure I sound like an old fart for saying this, like "those younguns don't know the value of a dollar any more".
By comparison at least, they are much freer with their money and don't have the same baggage about it. An example especially apparent for me is their willingness to spend on clothing, where I just can't bring myself to do it. Maybe just not having been brought up around parents who were ever dressed that nice, or allowed me and siblings to be. Or for example, their lack of concern about overpaying for small things, which yes in the bigger picture, who cares if you're overcharged for a drink once in a while?
I suppose it's because the information or concern about not having money was already passed down or imposed on me as a lesson early in life (whether intentionally or not). Sometimes I view it as an advantage as I see that my friends (those spending freely) will encounter those lessons when they get married, have kids, etc. and need to save. On the other hand, I wonder if I'm just handicapping myself with that baggage and not allowing myself to enjoy the freedom that a good income now brings, and living too much in the restraints of my family's past...
While not necessarily the particular examples you give, there is a destructive side to the willingness to spend as well in terms of environmental impact. Lots of people in the US end up with basements or garages of stuff they don't use and can't even remember what is there or find it if they were ever to want to use it. I think there is a religion of wealth not just among the super wealthy where people think the environmental impact doesn't matter or if it does someone else will fix it or if not then they deserve it anyway. Ethically there can also be major issues, including with clothing, and the more likely to be ethical stuff can be more expensive (but not that expensive, the most expensive stuff is usually just expensive in order to show off wealth). The freedom of wealth is the freedom to shit on other people if you want to or just don't care enough to not do so. I suggest continuing to be careful about what you buy but with a wider ethical consideration rather that just looking for the best price.
It is very possible for one to be handicapped by such baggage. My mother has been a massive penny-pincher her whole life, in reaction to her straitened circumstances as a child. I now wince when she resists things like going to a cafe lunch with friends, as a habit like that is not helpful in maintaining relationships.
But then, I probably don’t pinch the pennies tightly enough. It’s hard to get the right balance.
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.
Costco is generally clean, Costco doesn't have the corporate reputation for extreme exploitation of their workers that Walmart does, Costco's store brand is actually decent, there appears to be no overt cost-cutting in store operations, and for me the big deal was that Costco was the only place around here that attempted to actually enforce mask mandates after you were inside the store. I saw one lady getting escorted out for taking her mask off and starting a fight when asked to put it back on; She screamed "I'LL NEVER SHOP HERE AGAIN!" and the employee escorting her out said matter-of-factly "Yes, that's what trespass means."
In short, they give the appearance of doing ask if the things a business should be doing in line with the intent of the law, as opposed to just doing the bare minimum to the letter of the law, and doing what you are supposed to do is so rare as to be considered exceptional.
That depends, are you the health inspector? But yeah, unless you live in an area where the average home is 400k+ and the average car is a Mercedes your local grocery stores will be "grimey". Not really dirty, but staffed by people who (rightfully) aren't paid enough to care. By comparison Costco is basically sterile.
You're saying that people who work in grocery stores don't care about their job performance, because their level of pay is guaranteed by workers in other industries being productive? That's a cynical thought.
By the way, where I'm from (EU), cleanliness is definitely the norm for grocery stores.
Come on. I’ve been to many, many small grocery stores in Western Europe.
Some had obviously old/dirty fixtures, signage, and floors, some had newer cleaner looking equipment. The average in Europe was much, much “dirtier” than Americans on average will put up with.
“Dirty” in this context means not-new-looking.
I’d much rather not pay for someone to replace things that are perfectly functional.
But many consumers (especially Americans) prefer extremely well lit, very new looking equipment.
So I think you may have this exactly wrong. Europe has much dirtier stores, because it doesn’t value cosmetic polish as much as health and cost savings.
US grocery stores in general seem no less clean than western European grocery stores from my limited experience. I don't know what the parent poster is talking about -- even Walmarts in the bad parts of town seldom seem conspicuously "dirty".
> I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco
The first thing someone told me when I got to the US was to go to Costco, pay the membership and get an AMEX charge card for Costco.
If you are someone with zero credit history and want to buy groceries without having cash on you all the time, then Costco is a big part of the "welcome to America" package.
What Costco lacks in variety, it made up in quality and quantity (no, that's not a choice). The food is good, most things are sold at cost, gas is cheaper, diapers are cheaper ... everything with a Kirkland label is middle-of-the-curve good.
So Costco runs become a regular thing. Before you know it, it is like church - go there, show your membership and eat the wafers.
Not quite a religion, but something you still proselytize.
Maybe yours does something different, or it's an AmEx branded debit card, or you're not in the US and they do something different abroad, but no Costco I've been to since the switch has accepted any credit card that isn't a Visa.
New Zealand is getting our first store in a couple of months and people are obsessed with it. Stories in the media nearly every week. Long queues for membership.
A lot of this is because the local Supermarket Duopoly avoids competing on price and makes great profits. People are looking forward to cutting their costs and also a flow-on as the supermarkets cut their prices a little to compete.
Similar to IKEA which is a year or so away. Easy to take for granted when you have it but the alternative is paying a lot more for similar to worse quality.
It would be fascinating to be part of that team at Costco or IKEA planning to open a new store in a new country. On top of the challenges you can think of, there must be aspects of running the business that you take for granted in your home country and don’t realize will be a challenge in the new country.
> On top of the challenges you can think of, there must be aspects of running the business that you take for granted in your home country and don’t realize will be a challenge in the new country.
New Zealand has an educated, English speaking workforce, uses the English common law and actually has rule of law. They know how to do this. IKEA has stores in Vietnam, where all of those are much less true. They’re not going to learn much about international expansion they don’t know already. This is very different from a Canadian company opening up in the US, or a French one in Belgium. IKEA, and I presume Costco know how to do this already.
You hire people from the new market who do know those quirks. Or, you can be like McDonald's and most fast food/QSR companies, and simply license your name to "master franchisees" in those markets.
I would guess that island conditions naturally lead to (at least tacit) price collusion, such that the entry of a multinational might not lead to prices going down. (In the US, the classic case is White vs. Packer, about gas prices in Martha's Vineyard.) IKEA prices vary a lot between countries. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/121925681/no...
> I would like to understand why people are so enamored with Costco
I’ve been going to Costco since it was Price Club in the 1980s. I can explain why people love it. There’s an aura of mystery to the shopping experience because of the philosophy behind the layout. They basically want you to shop around the whole store because nothing is ever in the same place and product longevity beyond basic consumer staples is unheard of. In other words, it is unlikely the special product you find one week will be there the next. This kind of unpredictability goes against the grain of the reliability built into the shopping experience, and it’s what I find so attractive about it. Not only will you be exposed to something new and different, but you’ll have to settle for an entirely different product than the one you planned on buying because of the surprise factor at work. Obviously, this consumer approach won’t work for everyone, especially those who stubbornly buy the same thing every week or month.
When I worked a summer at BJ's (a similar wholesale club) the manager informed me that this was by design. I was asking why we needed to move all the stuff, if we were discontinuing or something. He said nope, we just have to do this every now and then because it keeps people shopping longer. There may be an added "experience" element to it as well, but this was an eye opener to me as a teen.
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.
> soviet stores. (...) but the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality and at an affordable price
Must be different soviets that I lived in. The quality was often terrible (e.g. "chocolate" that did not contain cocoa at all, ugly clothes and shoes that would break down quickly, beer that tasted like piss etc.) and that is assuming the goods were in the store at all. Basic western goods, such as Levi jeans or can of Coca-Cola were celebrated as artifacts of an alien, infinitely more advanced civilization.
At least with chocolate, during communist times in Poland AFAIK if someone was packaged as "chocolate" it had to be chocolate - it was "chocolate-like product" that you had to be wary of which was closer to american "chocolate"[1]
[1] I jest, I jest, but what is legal to be in store-bought chocolate in USA, based on things I actually ended up getting while visiting, was literally one of the ways communist poland cut chocolate to make "chocolate-like product" :V
Yeah, Costco has OK selection and OK/good prices. The downside for groceries is the bulk sizing can be much more than you want to buy.
Their return policy is also very good. Obviously do not abuse this (or you are being a jerk). This means you can buy things without hesitation since you can easily return it should you run into an issue later.
> soviet stores. There is no 10 kinds of everything, but the ones available are guaranteed to be fairly good quality
According to people from the former soviet block I know, the reason they got so good at fixing stuff is because the first thing they did after buying an appliance from a store (after it became available eventually) was fixing it because nothing ever worked as expected. I guess "nothing" is an overstatement but I still wouldn't use the soviet union as an example for great product quality.
I feel like that was generally a property of everything everywhere though. I still remember sticking a fork into my VCR (probably made in USA?) or basically every car having something wrong with it.
Things have gotten more reliable across the board imo.
PriceSmart, (Costco's Latin American cousin), does something similar too.
They research/test the products before selling them so that they comply with their quality standards. So once products are on the shelves its likely that they are good.
This make buying decisions easier. Which is a much better shopping experience than having to read a dozen product reviews while shopping online.
> 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.
> I've never seen anyone say anything positive about Samsung, their service, or the serviceability of their appliances
I have all Samsung appliances at my home. They are the best appliances I have ever owned. I can't speak to their service because I have never had a single issue with any of them.
> I have all Samsung appliances at my home. They are the best appliances I have ever owned.
Congrats. I think you're in a minority. Our washing machine 'fabric softener' compartment started rusting less than a year after getting it. We had a long time and many back and forths trying to get them to acknowledge the problem. Their 'fix' initially was "don't use that". Finally - months later - they agreed to have someone come fix it, but it was going to be hundreds of dollars because we were "out of warranty". "But... we reported this to you with months left in the warranty period". "Well, tough luck" was basically the response.
My wife kept persisting - this dragged on for months - and eventually got some service rep to 'cover' this and a service guy came out. "Oh this is common - see this a lot with Samsungs in the last few years".
Relatedly, we had a dryer guy come out to fix the Samsung dryer. He indicated Samsung and LG were among the worst consumer-level brands for home appliances, based on their workload as service techs. But Samsung and LG have gigantic foot prints in the major retail outlets, so continue to get sold in to many households.
I've heard enough stories from friends and family about samsung fridges and washing machines dying shortly after their warranty and Samsung wanting crazy money to fix them. Also a friend who bought their top of the line "frame" TV and returned it within a week because the TV had stutter when watching live TV and there is an 800-pages long forum thread about it on their forums, with Samsung basically replying "we're aware of this issue and we aren't planning on fixing it".
On the other hand I have their phone(S21) and I'm very happy with it.
My experience is the big ticket items are all fine products at normal prices, but there's no reason to pick Costco for them. I suspect it's where they make a lot of their profit, considering their groceries are famously low margin. I buy groceries and gas exclusively there.
Here in UK the #1 reason to get them from Costco is that they give 5 years warranty on all electronics and home appliances, way beyond what the manufacturer offers. I'd happily buy a new TV or a fridge from them for that reason alone.
I strongly suspect it's the extra services that third parties sell through them. Like the vacation packages, air conditioning installation, etc. We almost got a Puronics filter through them, but stopped short when we found out that it was $9000 at Costco, but $6000 through an independent installer.
Costco.com is where to look for coffee and other foodstuffs. You may have to buy the coffee in 5 lb bags, but the selection is superior and the quality is generally very good.
Looks about the same to me. They have Peets Nespresso cups, K-cups, bags of ground coffee, and whole beans (conveniently filed under "ground coffee"). K-Cups are offered in hazelnut mocha (yikes), house, french roast, maj. dickason, and decaf maj. dickason. The ground beans are available in Colombian, Big Bang, Decaf Maj. Dickason (+ decaf), and Organic Alameda Morning.
Whole bean? Just Major Dicakson in various quantities.
You could make an argument that the disposable cups will have a decent shelf life. 10 ounce bags of grounds won't though – that's kind of the antithesis of quality right there.
Your store(s) must have better coffee selections than the ones I frequent. Ruta Maya, Mayorga, some Kirkland varieties and others are much better than what I can get locally and only available to me online.
Lidl, at least in most places, doesn't run bulk stores like Costco apparently is.
There are some bulk stores with memberships, some of them limited to B2B sales, some accepting normal people as customers - places like MAKRO and Selgross - but they obviously are mainly a warehouse supplier for shops and companies.
I don't know how Lidl is in terms of selection in other countries, but especially with smaller stores the joke is that "every week something new" which refers more to somewhat random selection, and they tend to have lesser known brands (which, while not necessarily a bad thing, isn't also a sign of quality, and sometimes you really like the specific brand). Personally when I shopped more at Lidl (had one opposite of office), I compared the selection to "what recently fell of the truck and will stay till it's all sold"
It is always interesting to read how different such brands are perceived in different countries. Over here in Germany, Lidl is considered "the better discount store" as compared to Aldi (especially Aldi Nord), and has made a push to more high-level products (which often are better than name-brand stuff that they also carry).
When I talk to British friends, the idea of shopping at a Lidl seems to be sacrilegious to them. Still, when I went into one somewhere in Yorkshire before the plague, it was pretty much what I expected.
We got a Lidl near us - one of the first when they were planning their US East Coast invasion. Apparently, they're scaling back new stores, and ours is one of a handful of 'large' footprint stores, and almost everything after that is (or will be) probably half the size.
We love Lidl mostly because of the price. Almost everything was/is around 20-30% less than the stores around it. Much of this is from 'store brand' items, but the price diff is lower even against other 'store brand' pricing.
When they opened, they had a wider variety of items, including a wide variety of daily baked breads. That got scaled back a lot, as apparently there's not enough support/demand in this area for fresh breads outside of 'white'.
There's a weird circle of grocery stores that have sprung up in my area. Within a 3 mile radius, there's Target, Walmart, Lidl, Aldi, Wegmans, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Publix and Lowe's (2?). It seems excessive to me, but the area is growing, and they likely wouldn't have invested in this area without a strong expectation of not losing money.
There's still a Lidl stigma around here. Many folks I talk to think of it as some 'poor person' shop.
Hm. For me it is about choice. The sortiment is just limited. In Germany there is also the "Luxus-Lidl" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaufland but they are just so-so. Nothing special, in comparison to what else is available.
The US stigma is interesting, because Lidl stocks more high quality goods than many other stores. E.g. the jelly is from Germany, the chocolate is inexpensive yet fair trade.
I don’t know if I eat cheaper at Lidl but I eat better. The cheese and meat sections alone - I have probably twice as many charcuterie boards now that a Lidl moved in.
I suspect it's precisely because most of those 'better' items aren't 'name brand' items. "fair trade chocolate bars" - regardless of quality - may not sell to a population raised (for generations) on hershey bars.
IMO Aldi-Nord vs. Lidl aren't that different, though it also depends on the ___location of the store. For instance, a Lidl embedded in a larger station has a wider range of frozen and cooled foods, or more variety of the same stuff, say pizza, or yoghurt, but almost none, (or none at all?) of that ever changing non-food action stuff. While the standard layout, freestanding Lidl has less of that, or is almost always out of the stuff I prefer.
Aldi-Nord isn't that different, I'd say, at least not when free standing, in their standard layout. The only difference is the glaring white LED lighting they have. That is bRrRr!
Oh, and their electronic payment works fast.
Had to use that recently for the first time in my life because I thought I had more cash on me. Wave card, enter pin, ZAHLUNG ERFOLGT! Phew!
(Yah Yah, I caved in, I know...)
edit: Aldi-Nord has better spices, though not all the times.
Their Tandoori-mixture is very good, at least compared to the dozens of others I've tried. (In those small 80g aluminum cans) Ginger powder is also acceptable for me.
However, most of the times I just skip them, because I have 2 excellently managed Edekas available, and they have it all!
Plenty of good points made already - gas is cheap, products are good - but what keeps me a Costco shopper is the consistent and frequent stories about them being a genuinely good employer. Maybe because I've spent my career in retail IT, but I hear all the time about how good of a place Costco is to work. Staff turnover is low, wages are good, and they close for most holidays. I may not need 48 AA batteries often, but when I do, I'd rather buy them at Costco.
I was totally unaware of that. Thank you for pointing it out.
I assumed Costco had shitty employee treatment like other large chains. Its sad that this has become the default we have come to expect from stores and not even think about it.
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.
You are right that at the end of day it is just a store. I know many people who keep renewing Costco membership every year but goes like once or twice a year. I on the other end is in same category that author describes. Even for gallon of milk I'd prefer going Costco and if there is more than one item it is not even a question.
To me most basic thing would be great quality at that price level that I guess everyone else is also looking for. At deeper level by reducing choice it sets a familiar pattern of food I eat on daily/weekly/monthly basis. Or for clothes just like people wear brands and proud to announce it. For me it is I do not wear brands and similarly proud of the fact.
It you eat the food they offer you can definitely get it at a better price. Furthermore Costco demands a higher quality for certain products. I don’t have the source on that but read somewhere once that say the can of soup you get at a regular grocery store then compare it to Costco they have better ingredients things like higher protein for example. I also know things like protein powder were the same price but much larger at Costco. Meat is much better quality and cheaper. Their return policy is hassle free. Probably a lot more I could say about Costco.
I see a few stores have their evangelists, but TJ's are the most evangelical IME. Other places that seem to have their cults are Menard's and Buc-ees. I've never been to a Menards, living in the southern US, but I get the love for all the others.
The simplest answer to this is Kirkland Signature. It's a very genius idea that Amazon is starting to copy now with AmazonBasics, but Costco has been doing it for years.
TL;DR: If you buy something like Grey Goose vodka, it's going to be the same product as the Kirkland Signature version on the shelf next to it. It is often literally from the same factory. Costco AND Grey Goose make more money by being able to sell to multiple market segments.
Read that article. It's genius and one of the many reasons I love shop at Costco.
Store brands (private label brands owned by the retailer) have been around forever and are not a Costco innovation. Every US grocery store and most big box stores sell them.
My great grandfather moved to a different part of Asia and never went back. My grandfather moved elsewhere and never went back. My mother moved to another continent and then later, with my father, to a third, where I partially grew up. And I moved to yet another continent (with another emigrée), speaking a language that, like my mother, I had learned after growing up.
Yet today I spoke English with a stranger, a woman born to Indian immigrants and she spoke with the same hand gestures I do.
The article used Costco as a vehicle for exploring the experience, and yet so some degree trauma, of moving away from your birthplace. I read it through the lens of a common belief that Asian families in particular are very close and don’t handle migration well.
I mentioned my story because it’s a contradictory example, but also because I believe that the belief that somehow “Asians” can’t handle family separation is not correct — I believe all people have roughly the same percentage of “gotta stay here” and “gotta go somewhere else” — it’s just human nature.
The last part of my story also relates to the Costco article: despite a lot of time there I never lived in India, nor, thanks to the laws and attitudes of where I was born did I speak much of any Asian languages with my mother yet decades later I, and some American woman of Indian decent whom I’d never met before, used the same body language and gestures while speaking. Where did that come from?
I enjoyed this piece immensely. Might be a "missing the forest for the trees" thing, but it was odd needing to scroll so far down for a comment that grok'd the theme of the article, instead of chiming in on discounted gas and Kirkland vodka.
My favorite Costco is in Iceland: a place where things are normally absurdly expensive, and Costco Iceland is merely somewhat expensive. Arrive, stock up on food for a week (to supplement with restaurants, but some savings). Costco Japan would be really fun to visit too (haven't yet).
Also Costco + Internet (Amazon, B+H, etc.) are essentially 99% of my shopping here in Puerto Rico.
Visiting Costco, Walmart, etc. immediately after returning from war zones with limited supplies is a pretty shocking experience; I can only begin to imagine what it's like for someone new to the country who is actually from such a place.
Costco in Japan is great. Even without an American sized fridge and freezer it is definitely worth shopping at. It’s by far the cheapest place to buy American snacks, bacon, good peanut butter, tortillas, brown sandwich bread and kind of the only place to buy bulk. It’s an hour away from me and requires a car rental but it’s easily worth going once every 2-3 months.
I have 2Gbps symmetric fiber at home for $100/mo. There are a couple fiber vendors, cable Internet (although low upload speeds, but better than Comcast in the US), fixed wireless, and now Starlink. Internet, cell, telecommunications are all great after deregulation/privatization back in 2000; the problems are power and water (which are more government run, or monopolies selected by the government).
As a child of AAPI immigrants, this piece really hit home, especially when the author mentioned how the struggles of her parent’s generation impacted the way she was raised.
Really the progress started with Deng Xiaoping, so just in the last 45 years. But China has 20% of all humanity, so really just stepping back into its rightful place after the disaster of Maoism.
Probably not around at the time that the article's author's parents emigrated.
There are people doing more of the outdoor thing in China now. Probably none going about 20 years back. Last time I was there, there were recreational bicyclists (ie. taking them off the back of their car) in the cities, as opposed to my first visits where many more bicycles for their comute than cars.
Their prices (Carrefour and Walmart) are not really competetive though, they have (Carrefour) some special stuff not carried in other shops if you wanna buy foreign goods, but for regular grocery you are better off with Wumart, BHG (and for small Chaoshifa) or others.
I was especially stunned with how bad was Chinese Macro, you must buy in bulk, but you will get higher prices than small Chinese shops, in Europe they pretend to be wholesale where you msut buy in bulk, but at least their prices are oftena bit lower, often can't really compete with Kaufland/Lidl/Penny, but in China they didn't even try.
Anyway by the end of my 5+ year stay in China I was doing already my groceries though the app, delivered to my 5th floor apartment without elevator.
OPPO is Chinese brand, so dunno exactly how is it worth mentioning they have stores in China.
Most cities have plenty of hiking and camping groups you can join. Hiking and other outdoor activities have grown considerably in popularity in the last couple of decades.
Lots of stone path walkways which people will refer to as hiking, but isn't what most in Europe or the US would consider it to be. There are groups that build off old paths that connect villages or which were used for hunting. Some areas have really nice networks of trails, though, just not to the extent you'd find elsewhere.
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).
I couldn’t find the original data either. Numerator offers snapshots of customer distribution [2] that go beyond just a median or mode, but does not share it publicly for Costco.
> 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.
This is obvious simply by searching for Costcos on a map. Or the fact that any time your total is less than $100, the cashier and the customer joke about how lucky and rare the sub $100 receipt is.
that doesn't make sense. It says that the "typical shopper" is one very specific gender/age/income/racial category.
What the heck does that mean? Am I supposed to believe that the most common category of people are that category, or that those attributes are the more common ones? I'm positive I see an almost even split of male/female when I go to Costco. Otherwise, that wording is jacked by any metric.
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.
No, according to a dubious "research firm" that provides no data, the "typical" Costco shopper (define typical however you want) earns 125k. The same firm also states the typical Wal-Mart shopper earns $80k, same as both Whole Foods and Target. You can decide how close their numbers are to reality.
As a native born and poor American without any parents I feel the same way going to Costco. Its miraculous.
After being homeless a few times as a native born American I still feel like showers are the ultimate luxury.
I'm always happy to see immigrants with jobs in America and Europe but I can't help but wonder what can we do to make other countries as desirable as America?
Theres billions of people. Why aren't their countries desirable as well?
Why is North America and Europe the main destination for the entire world to wish to immigrate to?
Why doesn't almost any country in Africa South and Central America, Asia, and India continents have immigration problems and what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?
Because they are higher trust societies with less low level corruption, allowing one to have more peace of mind in day to day life.
Simply going out in a vehicle is magnitudes riskier in the country my parents come from. My whole extended family can afford maids, cooks, and drivers, yet they all moved because they wanted a lower volatility life for their children, even if it meant doing your own laundry, cleaning, cooking, and driving.
Can you say more? My spouses family was same, I go visit them in their country and they have lavish wealth (comparatively to others in the country) and maids and cooks and such. But they moved to developed nations like AUS, US, and UK.
Less worry about needing to bribe, especially for everyday stuff. Less worry about getting shaken down by cops. Stable governments with government insured bank accounts and money that loses purchasing power at a much slower rate. Ability (and threat) of the court system to potentially right a wrong.
The simplest answer is that good, capable people need to participate in the civic process. Not just voting every year. Running for office, campaigning, donating, knocking on doors, participating and starting civic organizations, having children, raising those children with the proper values.
Unfortunately, a lot of that can be undone by things like lack of resources, which means things like securing your own or your tribe’s future is more important than advancing everyone’s.
It is possible that those in developed, stable countries are simply lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. As boundary conditions and parameters change, the situation can evolve or devolve with little control.
> higher trust societies with less low level corruption
Without a doubt this seems like a big/major factor. But we have corruption in the US. Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors? Not rhetorical, I just don't know. Casually it seems like many European countries have the same or greater expectations and similar prosperity. When I read stories about Russia and the former Soviet republics it makes me think that there's so much mistrust and hopelessness that a corrupt government is taken for granted.
I have no idea whether or not the US is exceptional but if it is I wouldn't jump to describe it as virtuous. But I do wish I could understand what policies we could pursue that might make other societies similarly high trust.
> Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors?
Neither answer is complete. Laws and enforcement can only go so far. It is not feasible to police every single interaction between people.
My amateur hypothesis would be a combination of a wealth of resources, growth outlook, shared struggles, traditions and cultural outlooks that provide utility and propagate downstream, etc. Probably impossible to intentionally recreate. And of course, very possible to lose.
If everyone in society decides they want to screw each other, then no amount of laws will help. Unfortunately, in many societies, the game is very adversarial with dire consequences, and you have to play that way.
On the other hand, a society where people are mostly out to engage in good faith transactions can greatly benefit from reduced friction, enabling more transactions and each actor wasting less energy in preventing themselves from being screwed.
> Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors?
I think there's an expectation that at least egregious corruption will be enforced against; typically in a court of law, but if not, in the court of public opinion. But also, petty bribes are offensive to be offered or demanded. There's a sense that bribing your way out of a minor offense is a more serious crime than whatever the offense was.
There's still higher level corruption, regulatory capture and all that, and other cases of interested parties making decisions with conflicts of interest. Those are trickier than bribes.
These sort of things should have more transparent and correct naming. Corruption is high as can be in the west too. It’s just mostly lobbying so the average person doesn’t have safety concerns. Something like stability, comfort, and safety concerns makes much more sense. Or as quoted, less low level corruption works too.
The Democracy Index being done by The Economist and being used as a respectable index to look at is pretty funny, but in line with the status quo.
How many low end countries in these indexes have been used and abused by the western countries liberal/conservative political regimes The Economist, its ownership, and many of its readers love? Sadly, dozens upon dozens upon dozens.
> Because they are higher trust societies with less low level corruption, allowing one to have more peace of mind in day to day life.
Certainly this is a factor, but let's not forget the decades of destabilizing influence, coups, assassinations, wars, sanctions, and foreign policy promulgated by the US to keep some countries poor to maintain US interests.
> what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?
Great book on the subject is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail It explores precisely this phenomenon - why certain places that have geographic proximity (Dominican Republic and Haiti, Nogales AZ and Nogales Sonora) drifted so far away from one another economically, why some places with vast natural resources (Nigeria) are undesirable while some other countries with limited natural resources (Japan, Singapore) are economic successes.
Here is an unscientific explanation. NA and EU are populated by older souls: some of them see the value of giving, while others, who've chosen the wrong path, are adepts at scheming; but both are similar in their maturity. The less mature souls are still busy with mastering their emotions and their nations are too chaotic for this reason: they either fall apart without a leader, or when a mature leader presents itself, they have to be ruled by an iron fist (China, India). Eventually the focus will shift to another place on Earth: the most advanced will move on there and America will join the long list of empires that were once great, but that event is still a thousand years away.
See e.g. National IQ and Economic Development: A Study of Eighty-One Nations, by Lynn and Vanhanen.
There is a superlinear relationship between average IQ and GDPPC.
Research precludes a predominant causal relationship from GDPPC to IQ (e.g. via Flynn effect); all that is left is that population intelligence causally precedes GDPPC.
> Why doesn't almost any country in Africa South and Central America, Asia, and India continents have immigration problems and what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?
Some countries do have immigration problems and emmigration problems. If they're more desirable than nearby countries, but not nearly as desirable as US/EU, then they'll pull in their neighbors, potentially too much at times, but still have those with resources leaving when they can.
IMHO, things people are looking for are physical safety, political stability, economic stability and opportunity, legal stability (rule of law, predictable courts, timely access to courts, reasonable law enforcement).
The top reasons people I hear people say they come to the US are because it's unsafe for them where they live, or to have the opportunity to make more money.
> 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?
By and large, the problem is unfortunately the reverse.
If you have resources, your government ends up either an corrupt, nepotistic authoritarian hellhole or a corrupt, nepotistic socialist paradise (until the oil/gold/diamonds/gas run out, at which point it becomes a corrupt, nepotistic authoritarian hellhole)
Most countries have the problem of corrupt, nepotistic governments that look after the insiders at the expense of the rest of the population - subsidies for their mates, tariffs on overseas imports the help your friend but screw an industry, etc. The simplest way of avoiding the most destructive consequences of bad governance is often to just remove the government from the equation.
I guess everyone else read Costco in the title and stopped. But my parents are from the same generation (also from Fuzhou, no less) and this was heartbreaking to read. Mine never explicitly mentioned going hungry, it was just implied. I also have an aunt (the eldest) who lost years of her life working on a farm in the countryside. It was forced by the state, not a decision made by her parents. She only returned home after she had a very severe case of malaria.
Apparently Microsoft keeps the ___domain for contoso.net and contoso.com registered and its mx receives a vast quantity of mail from misconfigured things out in the wild.
In the last 20 years, I did several jobs. The jobs I was happiest in were those where my boss was a loyal Costco shopper. I dont know if the two are connected.
I am amused by how clear it is to spot those that didn't even bother to open the link. All of them, no exceptions, could be summarized as "I am completely ignorant of what's actually being talked about and I am not really inclined to dig deeper into it. Anyway, let me interject with my worthless opinion and find a way to make this about me."
But then again, perhaps this could be a meta-commentary about how American hyper-individualism makes everyone's worldview so small that they can not see anything but themselves, and yet this somehow "works"?
What’s wrong with someone coming to HN for the comments? The headline allows for commenting about that subject.
For all you or I know, this story has most of its upvotes by people who want to talk about or read comments about Costco, not the story of the article.
> What’s wrong with someone coming to HN for the comments?
I don't mind reading the comments without reading the story. I mind people writing comments without reading the story.
> most (...) want to talk about (...) Costco, not the story of the article.
And that is incredibly shallow. If I wanted to read senseless comments based on the title of an piece, I'd just prompt GPT-3 for random wikipedia entries.
GPT-3 comments of any kind would certainly be incredibly shallow. Comments from actual grown people are different, even if it’s just based off ___domain + headline + a possible skim.
Edit: I’m not sure senseless comments even correlate more with not reading an article.
Are you taking literally something that I wrote just for rhetorical effect?
Let me try in another way: I don't think that wading through tens of comments saying "I like/love/dislike Costco" or "I prefer Wegmans/Kirkland/whatever" is the type of thing that hits the mark for being a place that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".
This would be for boring conversation already if the topic at hand was a discussion about retail stores, but it's made even worse because the post itself has so many more interesting things to be talked about, that engaging in this type of shallow talk becomes a nuisance to the ones that actually made just a bit of effort to read the piece and are ready for a more interesting conversation.
I was trying to make the point that not reading an article doesn’t mean shallow comment or a tendency for more shallow comments on its own.
I am a first generation person, but I didn’t find the article interesting. I skipped all comment threads about the story once I saw they were similarly uninteresting to me. I enjoyed the Costco comment threads. A Costco opened up near me this year so I care about that. I don’t begrudge the people commenting about the story though.
You want the site to revolve around your preferences. Not using a certain word doesn’t change the meaning and intent behind what you’re saying. A pretty shallow way of seeing things.
You appear to have a consistent attitude that you are not only always correct, but every one not like you is intellectually beneath you. You have been rude through this entire conversation putting people down.
I could have an identical conversation with any one on a Jordan Peterson thread. With every single one of those fans similarly believing in their own uniqueness and superiority. The smugness. None of them are shallow ofc either.
Costco will open in Sweden soon. On the opposite part of Stockholm from where I live, so I don't think it will be useful for me. I don't know much about it but I am excited to see what it will bring, and if it will affect the general grocery market around here.
I love Costco for many of the reasons people are citing here, but I didn't have a membership until very recently because the store is a bit useless if you don't have a car and a pantry. I really wonder how well they'll do in dense European cities where those aren't the norm.
Hmmmm I wonder if they will try the bulk model. Americans have very large fridges and grocery shop once a week. Grocery stores are often a 20-30 minute drive away. In my European country people have small fridges and may buy groceries several times per week. Grocery stores are a 5-10 minutes away.
The thing that will be interesting to see as well is how they approach a market where delivery has been increasingly important over bulk availability. Thinking about prices of services like MatHem and picsmart etc and if they can shake it up
Stockholm is a horrible place to live long term. You are basically banned from owning a car, but there are no convenient connections to huge shopping centers like Kungens Kurva (and stores likes IKEA doesn't offer delivery for most items!) and huge retail/warehouse stores like Biltema.
I am curious if your perspective comes from someone that is swedish or not. The general consensus locally is the opposite sentiment ime and ofc you can easily rent cars for the day or a small trailer for very cheap. That coupled with the fact to for example Kungens Kurva it is somewhere you can get to within an hour from within even the city center is quite nice and the bus stop is literally next to the IKEA (ofc you go to Barkarby if more north and again the station for the bus is right next to center). The delivery is interesting that you note considering we have always been able to get things delivered to our apartment though maybe it depends where you live...
Curious if being swedish national has to do with perspectives. From what I heard, perspectives of swedish nationals usually involves leaving Sweden.
I'm living on Kungsholmen for several years already if that matters.
Getting to Kungens Kurva from Thorildsplan involves one change and realistically takes a bit more than an hour to get there. Of course, you can't bring a huge box with your new sofa to a bus or metro and Ikea won't deliver bigger items too, so you have to deal with either renting a car or paying insane prices for delivery.
Same goes for bringing larger items to manned garbage collection stations.
I don't rent a car because I feel insecure about driving someone's else car after many years without driving experience.
I think in many ways it does because - and this is not meant to be a criticism but a statement of experience - I have really only heard complaints from those that are used to a culture of being able to drive somewhere, get their items of choice and bring them back. Maybe it is more of a Stockholm thing to plan days around this sort of thing, but when you say you only change once from Thorildsplan that is to me initially thinking an amazing setup. But I can see where if you come from a place where you just hop into the car and drive 5 minutes you get to your destination why it would be annoying. And yeah ofc it's just expected that for somethings you need to plan 3rd party services around things. For the garbage collection prime example, TipTapp is our goto since it works wonders for us (but ofc can't technically do "garbage" with it but great for sofas and such), we accept that without a car and trailer this is what we must do. That or plan around a neighbor's trip. As for not renting, I mean it's stockholm, parking will be expensive and not everyone likes the idea of paying 1100kr per month for parking I get it. Sometimes we rent a car but that's more for longer trips (read: to Romme Alpin or the like). I guess it's part of living in the city. You make a lot of tradeoffs. I do remember hearing how frustrating it was though for some expat colleagues that everything had to be planned for summer by like April/May and they liked to be more spontaneous. It makes me wonder that maybe it is just expected of people to plan too much here :P. If you try to just be spontaneous it doesn't work out well for many
There are virtually no free parking places unless you own a house in Stockholm. You can't park your car long term on the street near your apartments block because there is always a day in a week during which parking is forbidden, so you have to move the car at least once a week. If you get sick and end up in a hospital for more than a week or want to go to a long term vacation you will face HUGE penalties and likely outstanding towing and penalty parking fees.
This makes car ownership a constant headache, I don't want to deal with this.
Appliances shipped from Costco.com are in their original packaging. They usually come with damages. I have had a couple items that I had to bring them back to the store to return.
Another thing is how they choose which items to sell at a particular warehouse. I used to visit one to buy a Sony Bravia 77" OLED and was told that the model was only sold at locations with high-income neighborhood.
Other than that, they have a way to get my money. It seems like we go there every week or so.
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who shares the distinct memory of helping my dad pack up piles of Costco joint support vitamins and chocolate for when he went back to China. This article really hit me with nostalgia.
I also remember hearing stories about the first opening of a Costco in Shanghai. Given the rest of the comments here about initial openings in new countries, it’s funny to see how much of a cultural impact the brand has.
In some areas where it can be costly to import goods, like Hawaii, Costco tends to be one of few reliable stores to find products at relatively reduced prices. With this type of reputation, it's understandable why their following is loyal and enthusiastic.
Costco stresses me out! It's always so crowded, they move stock around so I can never find anything and the lines to check out are huge! BUT I do love how wide the aisles are.
Another thing that hasn't been mentioned, while it doesn't directly affect the experience, is how well Costco treats their employees. Almost all of their policies are progressive and employee first, and that's something I'm also willing to support.
In addition to having a great curated product selection that one can trust, they appear to treat their employees well as they always have a great attitude and top-notch customer service.
A lot of people I know in the tech space seem to love Costco. I've been. It's fine -- compared to a lot of other dingy, sad, depressing grocery stores, it is absolute MILES better. So I understand the fondness.
But for me, it can never compare to Wegmans. At Wegmans, the store brand is always a sensible default purchase in a category, and often the best option in a category. The employees all seem happy because Wegmans has been one of the best blue collar employers in the country for a couple of decades now. The hot bar, burger shop, and sub shop are all fantastic: relatively cheap, and often better than any fast/casual alternatives in the area. They have a great beer selection, if you live in a state that allows beer sales in grocery stores.
Caveat: if you've only ever visited the Brooklyn Wegmans, or honestly any Wegmans outside of the core central-western NY zone, you're missing out on the best qualities of Wegmans. For whatever reason, the stores they've started in new regions in the past few years just don't capture the same Wegmans spirit. The creme de la creme Platonic form Wegmans will forever be Rochester's Pittsford Plaza ___location. If you're ever in Rochester, it's worth the visit.
Everything you said about Wegmans is true of Costco. Kirkland brand is usually the best option if they make it and Costco is known for their high starting wages, benefits, and treating their employees well. Their hot dog (1/4 lb all-beef) + drink deal has stayed at $1.50 for decades and is legitimately a solid lunch. Their beer selection is good (at least in NY) although I would recommend just going to a local brewery to buy beer in pretty much any state.
Wegmans has recently come to New England. They are generally much nicer, cleaner, and organized then our big local chain, Stop & Shop.
However Wegmans has a weird inventory. Many things you could find in any New England grocery store like steak tips, salt-top rolls, or brown bread are simply missing.
It wasn't until I was perusing Wegmans' extensive cured meat department that I realized I was thinking of Wegmans the wrong way: it's not a grocery store, it's an ethnic food store, like a Super 88. But instead of being Chinese, Wegmans is a midwest ethnic food store.
Wegmans is just another overpriced grocery store with a huge wine selection going for it. Literally here in NC I'd rather go to Harris Teeter or Whole Foods than Wegmans. Some HT's have a bar to hang out at which I occasionally do before I do my shopping. I just don't see the appeal of Wegmans except the transplant northerners who are reminiscencing.
To which I responded "That sounds like a well run company!"