Costco Cult Behavior

Off-topic Chatter
1

I like the joint overall, it is just a study in human consumption made even worse during the shutdown era, that hoarding mentality stayed even after the shelves filled back up.
Having been there again today it just amazes the mind that people will line up at the door before they open in droves like Costco is giving away Free Money or something.
Would love to have a drone just hover over the joint for like the 45 minutes to show time to see the mob just go towards the doors like ants at a picnic.

Then when the mob gets their oversize cart the size of a dump truck they proceed to scamper for the Holy Grail of the Giant Paper towel/Toilet paper/Bottled water Mountain aisle at the rear of the store.
Legend has it if you are caught Not buying one of the big three jumbos every other visit you will be temporarily banned. :slight_smile:
It’s just like the people are hurrying as if robots, some with visible lists others have the internal list action on Glutton mode. Would love to know the weekly cash flow. Figure 2.5 - 3 million per location maybe?

If you work there, you will lose 15 lbs within the first 2 weeks as there is never a light day outside of maybe a hurricane or something.
However they are generous with healthcare even for part time so there is goodness there.
Anyway that’s the view from here.
Is it like that everywhere?

2

Ours is busy, but not nuts. OTOH, I never go on the weekend and shoot for quieter hours.
What I find interesting is the person that goes through the effort, stands in line behind carts that would supply a house of 6 for 2 weeks, and then buy what looks to be not much more than lunch.

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3

Taste tests, man. I do love the taste tests. At the right time of the day and especially during a holiday, I can partake of enough taste tests that I may be able to forego the normally obligatory Costco dog/soda saving me a buck-and-a-half. Ain’t America great? :grin:

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4

At the Costco I go to the best time is mid-week (Tue, Wed, Thurs) and mid-afternoon. Hardly ever a checkout wait longer than 2 or 3 minutes. Sometimes no wait. Checkout is fast too as our cart normally can have all the items arranged with the bar codes facing up. They can scan all the items with the hand scanner faster than I can type this line. Tap the credit card and we are gone. No boxes are needed as the truck has coolers and transport boxes for everything.

Been a member there for 3 to 4 decades and have never had one of their hot dogs or whatever else they sell at their food court.

We use a shopping list that we seldom veer from.

I think know that I am not an average shopper.

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5

Some people buy for large families, some buy for offices, some for restaurants and charities, and some have households where they rotate large volumes for readiness.

I shop for cheaper prices than Costco so they never worked for me, but for those looking for the compromise of convenience and price, it seems pretty good.

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6

I don’t use Costco for much. Sometimes gas and tire air. The selection is constantly changing, so for example the organic Spanish rice was there one day and gone the next. Most of the food is low quality, but they have some good things like frozen organic berries. I was buying their roasted almonds grown in the US, but they replaced it with another version sourced from about 20 different countries (they don’t say which) and it had peanut oil.

I went to see what 3M Filtrete air filters they had, and they have every size you might need as long as its 26" x 20" :upside_down_face:

The other thing to watch out for:

  • the ‘brand’ items are often licensed and made by somebody else. I had a Q about something and called the company on the tag, and the rep was like “oh, yeah we don’t make those, so I can’t help”
  • You will often find discrepancies in the Costco version of a thing vs what other sellers, especially wrt to supplements. Like the Collagen will be a specific Costco variant that is slightly different, like missing an ingredient.
7

In NY, they get into fights for parking spots at Costco. I joined for a year, never again.

Sams Club all the way. Much more civilized.

8

My gf had a borrowed subscription and would go to pick up stuff, and she said that prices there were hit or miss. Sure, you could get mayo or katchup in 5gal buckets, but prices for normal human-use bottles weren’t that great. TP and PT could often be cheaper at the supermarkets when on sale.

If you match what you want/need with what’s available that day you can score some wins, but don’t count on 5lb boxes of Cheerios being available tomorrow.

So they seem to be a kind of Odd Lot, ie, what’s available is available when it’s available, but it’s not a regular-carry item. Not sure about their own branded stuff (Kirkland, or is that the other one?), but lots of those those are other mfrs’ products made for them and have their brand slapped on. Costco-Brand Oats might be made by X today and by Y next week and Z the week after that.

Seems to be the same with supermarket brands. I often go to Key Food, and their White Rose brand yogurt was tops, better to me than Dannon and other Big Names. And they were the last holdout to keep 8oz cups vs shrinking to 6oz and then even smaller.

I loooved their peanut butter. Sweet and creamy like Jif and/or Peter Pan, and “purer”, ie, only 1 type of oil vs 2 (oils A and/or B), and fewer or no preservatives. Later, the taste changed. Same ingredients, but stiffer, and less sweet. Okay, so they change it up.

Bread, too. Stop’n’Shop had my all-time favoritest bread, but then they changed suppliers, now, not so good. Key Food does similar. Okay bread for the longest time, then it got “airier” and would break apart way too easily. Then they got a spell of reeeeeeeally good bread, as good as Bimbo, but that didn’t last more’n a few months. Now it’s more or less back to the same okay bread as originally.

Anyhoo…

Me, I live’n’die by the sales flyer, so stock up when I can when stuff’s on sale, then coast 'til it’s on sale again. Soups and other canned stuff, TP/PT, detergent, other nonperishables and such, are pretty easy to stock up on as long as you got the space. Once something’s cracked open, it doesn’t last nearly as long as smaller-sized bottles/jars/buckets that stay sealed until needed, so I dont do those industrial-size buckets of condiments, etc.

Forgot if it was Costco, Price Club, Sam Club, or what, but I do miss the cinderblock-sized bricks of cheddar that I used to get when I’d come-with, though.

Nothing’s better than cheddar!

9

It’s definitely a place. We have a complicated relationship. Some of their stuff is a crazy good value. Some things I know to avoid. Its mostly positive though.

But I don’t go there much anymore, except for gas because while their regular gas is only like 3¢/liter cheaper but their premium is a full like 20-30¢/liter cheaper and my car requires premium. And you can get gas without a membership if you know the tricks.

Actually you can get anything without a membership if you know the tricks but you can only do it every few months. But gas is easy.

10

I make a semi-monthly trek to the place for staples and it’s a bit of a grind primarily because the place is packed with folks just milling around at choke points or worse creating choke points.

But it’s also a warehouse club - and for some it’s a monthly or even seasonal trek - so the stack it deep inclination comes with the territory.

Also the membership nature of the place seems to induce sunk cost fallacy: I spent $60 for a membership this year, might as well get some value out of it.

The instinct to queue up baffles me as well since they’re not giving out a free latest iProduct to the first 100.

I’ve got a backlog of temp bans piled up then…

Hour before close during the week seems to be the ideal time to go to mine. Crowds have subsided to the point that one can power navigate the store and check out in a reasonable amount of time.

One of Costco’s strategies is the hidden bargain, which also compliments frequent SKU turnover.

Sam’s Clubs is far better for the small business demo they cater to. High degree of SKU stability relative to Costco.

I also pay the 93 tax, yet every time I consider it I look at that queue I decide it’s not worth the additional time commitment.

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11

YSK, you can return your membership for a full refund at any time for any reason as long as it’s still active.

You can buy a 1 year membership, use it however many times you use it, and then on the 364th day you can say “I don’t feel like I got my money’s worth from my membership this year” and they’ll refund you the full cost of the membership.
That’s how they convinced people to sign up when the company was just getting started and it’s still policy.

Just don’t expect to be able to do this every year. It’s not a free membership hack. You can only do it, idk, maybe once every 10 years. Otherwise they’ll be like, if it’s not worth it why do you keep buying it.

12

The best time to go to Home Depot is during the Super bowl hours.

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13

Thats a bit sleezy, no? They offer the no questions asked refund as a courtesy. Returning a membership on the 364th day, after you have been using for the past year is taking advantage of the system.

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14

I avoid shopping in person as much as I can. Waste of my time and petrol even if I didn’t have to breathe in dozens of other people’s exhalations.

15

No, not necessarily. You might genuinely believe that you didn’t get your money’s worth. Even if you used the membership every single day you might still believe that and it might still be true.

And, if you had tried to cancel earlier, say after 1 month, they would’ve said something along the lines of “Give us another shot, maybe something worthwhile will come on sale for you soon. It doesn’t cost you anything to wait another month, we’ll still refund you the same $60. Please consider taking advantage of the system a little longer”

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16

The person you interface with has absolutely no input on that policy decision. Those are made at a higher level. Those same ‘bean counters’ generally have little or no customer contact, and may…or may NOT…listen to anything their employees say about how the return process is actually working.
I think ‘in general’ the return process works. OTOH, there are a-holes that absolutely abuse it. They take a kind of ‘if it’s not illegal I can do it’, even if it’s crappy behavior. They don’t care as long as THEY benefit.
As customers the losses ALWAYS get passed on. Like it or not WE ALL are the ones paying for it.
Get enough of that activity and the return option becomes a big pain, and restrictions get put on by administration. We’ve all seen that happen.

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17

I think you misinterpreted something I said.
I wasn’t making any of the claims I think you’re arguing against. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting you. Either way I am confused

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18

Ah, membership refund. Somewhat different.
People do that all the time with Comcast. Call 'em up, threaten to quit and get a discount. OTOH, Comcast is relentless at raising fees, and abusing the customers IMO.
I was ranting more about the people that abuse the merchandise refund policy. I know people like that. Their argument is ‘I didn’t make the policy, therefore I can use it however I can benefit’.

19

Someone returned the gristle from their steaks

As in, they bought the steaks, they cooked the steaks, they ate the steaks, they put the gristle in a ziploc bag, drove back to costco with it, put it on the return counter and asked for a full refund.

And she got it.

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20

I go to Costco every 2 weeks. It saves me approximately $50-$100 every 2 weeks compared to the local grocery store prices (probably $50 compared to a Super Walmart that is the same distance away. I would probably save more if I wanted to wait 30 minutes to buy their gas. My purchases are for a 3 person family, and are usually of brand name items that I would be purchasing at the local grocery store. This works out to about a 40%-60% cost savings over shopping at the local grocery.

I do price comparisons and purchase other things through Amazon, WalMart, and the local grocery store. Also because I might prefer a particular product that Costco doesn’t sell.

If you think saving $50-$100 every paycheck isn’t worth it (or for my items a 40-60% discount in overall cost), then I’m glad you have that financial flexibility. I, however, don’t.