Explain Costco to me.

A lot of the food items you have to buy in bulk at Costco are available in single quantity for less at Winco. Our Costco membership fee was worthwhile when we were buying bulk quantities for our school lunch program a few years ago. Now, not so much.

Pro tip: If your 2% Executive annual rebate isn’t at least $60 (the difference in price between the regular and the executive membership), go over to the membership counter and they will pay you the difference. So you can’t lose.

Pharmacy, optical, and hearing aid depts are all open to the general public without membership.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Costco is more consumer oriented in terms of product mix and package size, while Sam’s Club (their main competitor) has more of a small business focus.

But the main reason to shop at the warehouse clubs is that you (as the consumer) are betting that over the course of the year, you’ll save more money shopping there than you pay in a membership. Part of that savings is through their economies of scale; Sam’s Club is under the Wal-Mart umbrella, so I’m sure they get LOW prices from suppliers. And sometimes it’s because you’re buying in bulk- for example we tend to buy in bulk on stuff that doesn’t spoil- for example dish detergent. We’ll buy the gallon jugs and refill a sink-side bottle as needed, for much less than buying a new smaller bottle every time. Same thing for stuff like ground beef- we’ll buy the massive package, and repackage it with the Food Saver and freeze it for later. Or pasta- we’ll eventually mow through it before it goes bad. Sometimes their stuff is just cheaper- we got a swing-set for our boys there, and it was about as expensive WITH installation as it was uninstalled elsewhere for the same basic thing.

But we don’t buy stuff like a 10 lb bag of onions. Even as much as we cook, we don’t go through 10 lbs of onions before the last 10% spoil.

Just to clarify the return policy…

It’s worth it for the hot dogs alone. The best deal in town. You cannot feel down when eating a costco dog. Plus a large pepperoni pizza for 10 bucks.

I buy the Kirkland big bags 'o dog food. Save about 5 bucks a bag. 12 bags at 5 bucks a throw, that’s the cost of the membership.

It’s been years since I’ve been to Sam’s Club or Costco, but I thought/noticed that too. For general household merchandise, I preferred Costco. Plus their hot dog and pizza is better!

A typical Costco visit for me includes:
Gallon of milk
Case of 24 eggs
Large crate of grapes (cheaper than store and stay fresh much longer)
Big box of chicken pot pies
Big bag of frozen grilled chicken
Two-Pack of Lemonade (half the price for equivalent amount at grocery store)
Case of store-brand “vitamin water” (better flavor selection than name brand case; WAY cheaper than grocery store)
Box of frozen pizzas

Sometimes I get meat and split and freeze what I don’t need. They have a nice selection of heat 'n eat fresh meals in the deli selection – last time I got a tray of six stuffed sweet peppers for $14.

I swing through the clothing section and have bought numerous jeans, polos, thermal/sweatshirts and clothes for the kid. Some of his favorite sweaters and pajamas came from Costco. A bottle of a bajillion store brand Claritin was extremely cheap. As noted upthread, paper towels and toilet paper never go out of style so why not stock up? Sometimes I find some other random item to buy and haven’t been disappointed.

Best of all, my mother pays for the standard membership for herself and just includes me on the plan! Turnabout is fair play: she’s been using my Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu accounts on the Roku I bought her.

My friend has a CostCo membership for the gasoline alone, apparently it’s far and away cheapest in town even if you factor in the membership cost.

No kidding!
Right now, gas at my local Costco is $3.09, and $3.49-3.74 everywhere else around here. If you fill up with 12 gallons a week, you’re saving $250 a year. Pretty sure that’s what they call a no-brainer. :stuck_out_tongue:

That depends on where you live. If you have to drive 40 miles to a Costco and do it just for the gas, you’re probably not saving any money.

Do you have a cite for this?

"You don’t need a membership to shop at Costco.com.

Going this route, however, does have some drawbacks. First, you’ll have to pay a 5 percent surcharge as a non-member."

lingyi: Unless they’ve changed it, this applies in-store also. Used to be the same at Sam’s Club. You just need to get a guest card at customer service before you checkout. Also, I think certain items like electronics aren’t allowed.

"Ask someone with a membership to pick you up Costco Cash Card next time they’re shopping. It’s the store’s version of a gift card and it will get you in the door whether you have a membership or not, Demer says.

No need to feel guilty: “Members and non-members may use the Costco Cash Cards to shop at any Costco location in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and online at Costco.com,” according to the terms and conditions of the card."

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/4-ways-to-shop-at-costco-without-a-membership-and-save-money.html

and you can get restaurant-quality(if not the exact items) items for cheaper than the resturant…like mozzarella sticks they charge almost 5-8 bucks for 5 or 6 as an appetizer

i can buy a brand name box of 50 that all the restaurants around here use for 14.50…in fact when the food truck I used to get lunch from owner retired he told me the brand of steak and cheese burritos he sold … they were el Monterey and he sold them for 3.50 apiece I could get a box of 40 individually wrapped for sale for 24.99 ,

What im recently saving from sams club is Folgers coffee … my aunt loves the black silk variety and that’s practically the most expensive name-brand coffee sold in stores (its like 13.00 in a 45 cup container) and even more expensive if you use a Keurig (15 for 18 cups)

well i took the advice of some of the dopers here and bought a “my kcup” so i could use normal coffee and bought a "club size " that gives 120 cups off of amazon and it was 25.00 it almost lasted 2 months

Well I found out sams club sells the exact same club size for 14.99 so I bought two and with free shipping so far ive saved her about 100 bucks on coffee just since march alone
So sams have paid for its membership for the year and her Costco is free cause my cousin is a member …

Except for everything you have delivered, every utility, your internet provider, every home service…

I found myself over time tailoring my cooking/dining practices in bulk-oriented ways. Like, I just bought 6 liters of olive oil, so I think I’ll sautee something every day instead of eating TV dinners. It’s a virtuous cycle that saves money.

Unless your Costco also has a liquor store, which can be very good or very bad.

I don’t buy 5 gallons of beans though. I reckon those are for restaurants, institutions, bean-counters, what have you.

I dislike the membership model too because I bristle at the idea of “joining” anything.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and harder to do anything these days without having to sign up, log in or show your card or something and I hate it. Seems like every other store I visit lately wants to know if I have a loyalty card or if I’ve downloaded their app. No, I’m just getting gas or buying a a gallon of milk, and I won’t join some damned club to do it.

It’s getting bad online too - fewer and fewer web sites seem to have “checkout as guest” options, which makes me mad. I’m already inputting my billing and shipping info, and goddamit the last thing in the world I need is ANOTHER login and password to keep track of - I have about 15 already for work alone!

But what really grinds my gears at Costco and a few other places is the “show us your receipt” line of shame. Yes, I realize shoplifting is a real thing that costs stores money. But no, I’m not going to do it. I’ll shop elsewhere, thanks.

I could probably save some money using Costco. Heck, one is right down the street from my work, so I could get gas there.

But I figure I save my share of money just by not buying a lot of stuff. Heck, I have a 4 mile commute I make 3x a week, and only gas up once a month or so, so that doesn’t break the bank. I have a large grocery store an easy 2 block walk from my house. I prefer just going there for what little my wife and I need over a week, or taking a stroll over there if we run out of something. And I have never warmed to the idea of “Costco runs” to stock up, or going to different stores for different food/supply purchases. My tastes aren’t so specialized that the local supermarket/drug store can’t satisfy them.

Probably irrational, but works for me.

Costco like Aldi and Trader Joe derive a lot of benefit from strictly controlling the variety of items on the shelves (SKUs). It’s cheaper to stock fewer items, offer fewer options, and sell only what sells well.

You can feel all resentful if you want, but it’s effective, just like the sign on the road that says “Speed limit 35 // hour speed: 33.”

And it’s not primarily there to deter shoplifting. It’s there to deter inside jobs in which cashiers conspire with associates not to ring up all the items. That’s why all they are doing is counting items.

There are a lot worse ways for retail stores to invade your privacy.

When my wife and I had three kids growing up in the house, we’d fill the minivan from stuff from warehouse stores (in our case it was Sam’s Club, but the same idea.) It wasn’t just food - they had some clothing items, alcohol, tobacco, even tires and appliances (although you had to get the appliances home and install them yourself.) The gasoline they sold to members was something like 5% cheaper than any other place.

Of course, when the kids grew up and moved out, we didn’t need to buy cases of stuff anymore, and the few remaining things we did buy there didn’t justify the membership fee.

As for refusing to give your personal information to a private business, MasterCard and Visa know what type of coffee you buy, what beer you drink, and where you buy them. The places that sold them know that, too. In case you still use checks, they come complete with your address and phone number. Are you under 25 or so and still asked to present an ID? All the information is right there on your driver’s license.

I’m not a Costco member but I have bought some OTC med products and some health & wellness products (Align capsules, Gillette razor blades, electric toothbrush heads) via the website for home delivery without paying a surcharge or even a delivery fee.

Also the examples given in the OP don’t sound correct. I have not seen a gallon jar of peanut butter there but checking the website, they do sell a two-pack of 40oz plastic tubs of Skippy peanut butter. Nor have I seen the five-gallon container of beans. Again, looking at the website, I see a twelve-pack of 14.5oz cans of green beans, or an eight-pack of 15.5oz cans of chickpeas. In short, for many goods, the unit sizes aren’t out of line with what is sold in supermarkets.

I think they did start off with the idea that the target customer would be a restaurant or other bulk purchaser, but I think today, the average customer is buying for residential use.