He never said they would use tile. He said the floor they use costs as much as tile. Costco has a poured coating over the concrete floors. A company I worked for would go out and shotblast the poured concrete and then pour the new floor surface at new Costcos in the region. It does look like concrete, but it’s has a finished, polished surface. There are many different finishes they can use; some are a lot less industrial looking. It’s been a long time, but I think the product has epoxies or acrylics added to a cementitious base. You can often see areas in the floor where it’s begun to wear off in small patches, and you can easily see the difference between the two.
Even raw ground pressure is gonna crack tiles in many cases, we are talking maybe 20 square inches of contact patch for 10,000-13,000 pounds.
Why are you talking about tile? There’s no tile.
(bolding mine)There’s no tile. Period. Another layer of poured floor goes over the concrete slab.
Sorry, I’m hijacking…carry on.
he (Quercus, more precisely the article he read) did, however, suggest that the concrete-like finishing is applied for marketing/consumer psychology reasons. Which is apparently false - it’s applied for practical reasons as per drachillix
I think Kilez and Chief Pedant cited the most important reason for membership, to ensure a more profitable clientele.
According to an obit by Margalit Fox in the NY Times of 16 Dec 09, when Sol Price started FedMart in 1954, the membership cost $2 and was limited to government employees and their families. These are folks not particularly prone to shoplifting or bouncing checks. FedMart’s competitors included FedCo and SaveCo, both of which also required membership based on employment.
Price sold FedMart to a German big box retailer that ran it into the ground and then started the Price Club in 1974. It charged $25 for membership but was aimed at small business owners. However, it did not turn a profit until opening up membership to everyone. Requiring membership, even if open to everyone, still “keeps out the riff-raff” as pointed out by the Chief Pedant.
Eventually, the Price Club was bought out by Costco and Price went on to open PriceSmart membership stores overseas.
I think that one of the main contributors to the astounding low prices at Price Clubs was the buyers. I think they new a deal when the saw it.
Sam Walton said that he got as many ideas from Sol Price as from anyone in the business. He apparently like the FedMart name and he opened Sam’s Club after dining with Sol. There is a lot more copying than innovation in retailing.
Bill Door said:
How is that a bad business model to accommodate the 2 item shoppers not having to stand in line waiting on the 100 item shoppers?
Lines are an inherently complex arrangment. Think about it - you have X number of people with varying numbers of items that all want to check out in a timely manner. You can open windows to check them all out simultaneously, great, everybody gets out as fast as they can. But what if you have more customers than checkout points? Or more customers than personnel to man those checkout points? Now someone has to wait in line.
The traditional system is still largely in place in supermarkets and the like; whatever number of checkout stations there are, there are that number of lines. The shoppers then have to decide which line to get in. They try to size up the number of patrons and number of items waiting in each line to find the minimal wait time. But then something happens, and the other line always goes faster. It’s irritating to customers.
Many places have gone to a “one line” system where all shoppers wait in one line and go to the next available window. That prevents line shopping mentioned above, and line switching - getting in line, then seeing the next line over moving faster so swapping, then finding out you moved behind the slow person in that line and your original line speeds up, etc.
But since supermarkets haven’t gone to the one line system, they have found an alternate means to cater to the needs of their customers - the express lane. That allows the 1 or 2 item buyers (or 10 or 20 depending upon the store’s break point) to not have to wait behind 3 or 4 people with 100+ individual items.
Voyager said:
Exactly. When bulk buying products, you are scanning a fewer number of large packages. The difference between a person buying a couple items and a few more items isn’t that big, whereas in a regular supermarket line, someone with a loaf of bread and bottle of soda* is going to be much different than someone purchasing a month’s worth of food for a family of 6, and then counting out coupons for each item.
needscoffee said:
Quercus was the one who brought up tile.
See, he is the one asserting the reason tile is not used is because poured concrete floor looks cheaper. Not that a tile floor wouldn’t work with the lifts, but rather that the poured floor looks cheaper. So drachillix was pointing out there is a practical reason for not choosing tile, regardless of the lack of any cost difference.
A real cost difference would be going with the original slab floor rather than a surface floor. But that wouldn’t work. Have you ever used a storage unit? The couple I’ve seen used the original slab floors, no surfacing at all. They are rough. Rolling a cart or dolly on those is likely to bounce your stuff off if you don’t hold it down. Those would be murder with forklifts.
*I was going to say a pack of cigarettes, but cigarettes are controlled substances and sometimes require calling a manager or accessing a different counter, either of which are artificial delays because of the product.
The one line waiting system is called single queue multi server. It’s a very good way to run a line but supermarkets are not really set up to do that for space reasons. Banks are small enough to use it and most do.
I would dobut that the finished-concrete (or whatever you call it) is actually cheaper than linoleum or terazzo or similar floors. To put down linoluem or similar finishes you have to have a smooth under-surface anyway, so you put down something like the smooth concrete anyway. Tile could be put down on rough concrete, but as mentioned, would probably crack to pieces in no time.
So we’ll agree smoothed concrete is (a) somewhat cheaper, (b) lower maintenance, © much more durable, and (d) fools consumers into thinking the place is bare-bones cheap. And… the overall finish results in much lower property taxes. Bonus!!
I was confused by the Minneapolis Costco not taking generic debit cards, because the Canadian ones do. Not sure if that was a tie-in thing or a cost of transactions issue. I had plenty of cash to cover it.
The Minneapolis Costco - or at least the one in the center-west of the area - has a separated off area for liquor. Not sure if that was to maintain security, or because by law they had to cater to everyone in that state too? I was in the ones in New York area and Chicago and didn’t notice if they had special arrangements for alcohol.
Yes. This is why I am often more likely to use a “regular” lane instead of an express lane at the grocery store. I just eyeball the situation and make a quick assessment based on the number of customers in line and a rough estimate of the number of items they are buying. Then I make some calculation in my head (that I’ve never really analyzed) and jump in whichever lane I think will be quickest.
Now that I AM analyzing it, I think it goes roughly like this:
2 customers in front of me in the regular lane, each with a medium-full cart (let’s say an average of 25 items. I don’t know the number really–I kinda judge it by “feeling” only) will get through faster than 4 or 5 people purchasing 5 or 10 items in the “Express Lane”.
Those numbers may be off because it’s really just like Potter and the Porn-- I know it when I see it.
Of course I employ some stereotyping in my eyeball assessment too-- people who appear to be doddering old folks who may wait until the bill is rung up before they even begin to perform a search-and-rescue of their checkbooks get special consideration.
Other red-flags might be people with a handful of coupons, folks with 7 yelling kids, an 18-year old trying to buy booze, or especially, someone who is all of the above.
Bottom line: the “Express Lane” is, as often as not, not.
Wait a second, I thought “anyone” could join? Does this mean you can’t get a warehouse membership if you are unemployed or a student even if you can pay the fee?
I had worked at a Sam’s Club. At that time, which was many years ago, you either had to own your own business, work for a business that allowed membership as a benefit, or belong to a whole list of organizations that would qualify you (most credit unions, various clubs like AAA, etc.). It was in no means exclusive, but it did keep most people of limited or no income away. There was always the Wal-Mart next door for those who did not qualify.
It may be different today as there is greater competition with Costco and others. From what I understand, the only requirement Costco has ever had is the ability to pay the yearly membership fee.
Depending on the state, minors may not be allowed in the liqueur department.
Not sure if MN has blue laws or not. Many places in the US forbid liqueur sales on Sunday, or before noon or 1 pm on Sunday, etc. Such laws get weaker each year.
Also there are no liqueur sales in most states (might be all??) while the polls are open on election days.
My wife and I quit going to Sam’s club, when we began noticing that the prices on things we actually bought were no different at plain old Wal-Mart. At first, we had heard that diapers were way cheaper there. In fact, we were saving about 25 cents on a package of 40. There were very few differences in the prices of things we actually bought. OTOH, they had some great things that you couldn’t get at the regular store, but none of them were necessary and all of them were expensive.
Yeah, Costco aims at a lot of “discount luxury” items – think a decent cashmere sweater for $70 or prime ribeyes for $9.99/lb. They also have 3-4 different types of smoked salmon.
The Costco in Charleston, SC, has half a dozen "express lanes,"which are self check-outs. The belt upon which you place your items is very sensitive, and if you don’t put it down carefully and squarely, the weight will differ from its actual weight. You will then get a recording to retrieve all your items and start again. This is a common happening, so now they have one or two clerks helping. They can override that command.
I’ll chime in my agreement that it:
a) Keeps out the riff-raff
b) Adds to the revenue stream.
c) Makes for a sense of customer loyalty. Keeps 'em coming back.
If a $50 per year membership fee is too steep for you…you probably are not flush with cash or credit. If you have to wonder if the family budget can handle that, you have current funds issues. If you must live by non-AMEX credit card and do not have any money in an account with a debit card, then you also have issues.
I’ve also noted at my Costco that there are hardly ever any crying babies. And the people seem mostly clean and washed.
As far as pricing goes, they are clearly undercutting retail on my liquor of choice. I drink Maker’s Mark. I prefer buying the 1.75L. At fairly much every retail store I find, they sell it for $45-48. At Costco, it is around $37.
I think Huerta88 is right on the “discount luxury” thing too. There are items I will buy at Walmart or wherever, but if I want quality goods at a reasonable price, I’ll look at Costco first.
I don’t buy any of the “fancy” stuff there, really. I mostly buy “staples” - stuff I would buy at Safeway if I didn’t have the Costco membership. But even on those, the savings are often dramatic, though I usually have to buy multi-packs of the items. But I think it’s worth it. As a couple examples, I can buy two 1.5 liter bottles of Listerine for 9.99, which is only 2 dollars more than a single 1.5 liter bottle at Safeway. Or the large jars of the Tostitos Salsa con Queso that I love so very very much - $5-something at Safeway, $6-something for two jars at Costco. Or a 24-pack of energy drinks that works out to a per-can price that is lower than even Safeway’s sale price.
My only complaint is the limited brand selection, or lack of variety within a brand. For example, with the Listerine I prefer the orange flavor, but Costco only carries the cool mint flavor; Amp is my preferred energy drink, but Costco only carries Rockstar and Red Bull (and sometimes Monster, which I can’t stand). But the savings makes it worth it for me to accept the “second choice” brand or variety. But some things I’ll still buy at Safeway, because I don’t like the brands Costco stocks, like deodorant. They carry only two men’s brands, I tried both, and didn’t like either one.
I work with a company that sells to Costco.
Costco takes what they buy from the company and marks it up 13%. That seems to be an across-the-board number. Whatever the item, if they buy it for $1.00, they sell it for $1.13, and I’ve been told that holds true across the board.
That certainly was not true at Sam’s. There were mark-ups that ranged from 0% for new release DVDs to 50-100% for some furniture items. We also periodically tweaked our electronics pricing by browsing the other local big-box stores to check their non-advertised prices. The goal was to ensure that our set prices on comparable products were below (or at least the same as) the local going rate. If you ever see someone mumbling models and prices into a mini-recorder while shopping, they are probably price-match comparison shopping for another retailer.