As of now in my area all grocery stores and other supermarkets have basically everything in stock, even toilet paper and liquid soaps. Going to a supermarket at 5pm is just like it was pre-pandemic. Hell I went into a Sam’s Club today and it actually seemed pretty light in terms of foot traffic and they have everything stocked and neatly organized.
But then I pass by my local CostCo and there’s still long lines of people outside the building trying to get in. The gas station at CostCo takes literally 20 minutes of waiting to get to a pump. People are still walking out with shopping carts full of toilet paper like it’s pandemic times still when my local Wal-Mart a block away has massive quantities in stock right this second.
I have a friend who’s been a member of CostCo for decades and he talks about CostCo like it’s political position, everything he says is fawning praise of CostCo, about how amazing the dollar hot dogs and the pizza is, and how he’s willing to wait 10 minutes in line after he’s done shopping for the CostCo receipt checker to slowly look at his grocery cart and sift through the bags despite me telling him just go to Wal-Mart now and no deal with the lines. It’s not like he’s desperate for money, he quit his job last month since his wife now makes more than enough to cover the entire families bills.
I don’t know. But your OP is both hilarious and bizarre.
Maybe they have the mind set of: “Well if Costco doesn’t have it, there’s no way these other stores will”.
(Thanks to that mind set, I was able to get bottled water at Braums when all the big box stores were out)
Sam’s Club tried to come to Canada, but I’m not sure whether they’re still around, even though WalMart is. But Costco has a much better reputation that Walmart in terms of labour relations, and there aren’t many other well-known chains of wholesale-warehouse stores. (The NoFrills grocery store in Belleville has a wholesale section, but it’s the only one I know of in that chain that does.)
Costco is the mundane façade for Shub-Niggurath and those who feast on its bargains participate (unknowingly or otherwise) in the “Rite of the Goat with a Thousand Young”.
Also, there is nothing special about the hot dogs and the so-called “Costco Pizza” is an abomination just short of Chicago Deep Dish Pizza-Like Casserole.
Costco is awesome. Values are better than other big box stores, and they pay their workers more. They’re one of the biggest sellers of organic produce in the US, if you’re into that. The quality of the food and goods is far above Walmart or similar stores. My membership barely pays for itself anymore now that I’m an empty nester but I doubt I’ll give it up.
This happened a lot here in the past couple of months - “CostCo is out of milk! No more eggs!”
I posted once that “Hey, I just bought milk, eggs, and bread at 7-11. They had a lot” and everyone ignored it, so I just kept it to myself and always had milk, eggs and bread.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Comparing Costco to Walmart is like asking “why go to a fine steak house for dinner then you can get a meal cheaper and quicker at McDonalds?”
The last time I went to Costco there was a line, but that was because they were only letting people in when others came out. It moved fast and checkout was faster than I’d ever seen. They were only letting 2 members of a family in which was great since there were no kids and grandmas blocking the aisles.
I go to supermarkets for most of my shopping, but Kirkland brand products are usually excellent. Their shelves are always stocked (in normal times) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Costco employee not hustle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a WalMart employee move any faster than his poor benefits would motivate him to move.
And receipt checking has always been very fast in my experience.
I just wish my Costco stocked the awesome crusty bread from a local bakery again.
I’ve never waited ten minutes for someone to check my receipt and my average line experience at Costco is leagues above my average Walmart line experience. The Costco cashiers act like they’re actually trained to move people along instead of sullenly trudging through the experience. Of course, they’re probably paid better, too.
The last couple of times I visited Costco, I was in and out with little fuss, even at the tail end of Covid panic-buying. I don’t think being desperate for money is an issue; in a way, shopping at Costco is a luxury discount experience. On one hand, stuff is cheaper on a per unit basis but, on the other, most stuff is $10+ a pop so filling your cart will easily run you a hundred bucks or (much) more. You don’t shop at Costco if you don’t have a decent pool of disposable income. If you’re on a tight budget, you’re at Walmart buying 33¢ cans of soup, not at Costco buying a case of organic chicken broth for $14.
All that said, it’s just a store. I like the quality of the stuff and they have good pricing on staple items we go through a lot of. Their meat and produce is generally high quality. I never cared much about the cafe area; it’s fine but sitting next to my cart full of stuff, chowing on a discount hot dog isn’t my idea of a great lunch.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I don’t see the answer through any of the means that are immediately available to me:
Were does the OP live?
Me personally, I am on the Big Island in the state of Hawai’i. I travel about 2 hours to get to the nearest Costco, and I don’t expect my experience to be like that of a Kona resident, much less that of an Oahu resident, much less that of a California or midwest continental US resident.
And Everytime there’s a Costco topic everyone tells me that slow checkout Costco’s don’t exist but I listened to two different podcasts recently complain about slow exit receipt checkers at Costco so it ain’t just me.
In my experience, they take about 5 seconds per cart to visually scan it at the exit door, no longer than that. Because there are ~10 checkout lines but only 1 or 2 workers at the exit doors, there can be a slow-moving line to get out. It’s never been bad at my locations.
You seem to be doing a lot of complaining about a store you haven’t actually ever shopped at.
It’s not unusual for the better store to have more customers than poorer stores. As others have said, the lines move fast and the products are very good.
When I first started shopping at Costco, I did the calculation and realized I could fully pay for the membership fee with the savings I got by buying milk and eggs.
Everything else that was cheaper was a bonus. Fruit, veggies, bread, meat, cheese, all less expensive than my local supermarket. Dry goods, drinks, cereal, oil, tuna, pharmacy items, all less expensive. The only times my local supermarket was competitive was with loss leaders like toilet paper, or goods you might catch on the occasional deep discount.
It’s also a well run store with employees that aren’t surly and beaten down. It’s clean and put together, items are stocked where they’re supposed to be.