Thread: Costco Warehouses

Originally Posted by rod1949

As yet their not in Western Australia. I was just looking on their website and I can't see any advantage.

Maybe not for you but your wife would, at least if she is like mine.

Peter.

Neither can I but the female of the species seems to get it OK. I will give them one thing and that is the variety available beats any other store by a long way.

Never seen packets of poo tickets as big as what they have at Costco ... !!!

Costco is funny. We're both in our 70s and I'm the one who does the "shopping" at Costco. SWMBO considers shopping as a competitive sport and she would be a competitor for a gold medal. Because there is just the two of us, SWMBO doesn't like to buy the quantities that Costco offers.

I shop (really just BUY like you blokes) for major items. A couple of computers, reasonably priced Vodka, tyres for her car, eye glasses and hearing aids.

The savings: tyres = $60/set of 4, 2 hearing aids = $2,000, 2 pair eye glasses = $300, Vodka = $3 and the computers about $300 each.

Pricing on the other stuff that they carry, I haven't got a clue.

Between Staples (Office supply store) and Costco, HP ink jet ink cartridges is about break even. The packages are different quantities of cartridges so direct comparison is a bit difficult.

When using the American Express card at Costco, there is an additional savings. (We get script about February every year. You can spend the script at Costco or exchange it for cash.) I don't know the percentage but on petrol, it is either 3% or 4% but the other percentages on a variety of purchase types are varied and not worth trying to remember.

One other thing about Costco is the extended warranty. I had the mother board die on the desk top after 16 months. With the extended warranty through Costco, HP replaced the mother board, FedEx overnight both ways and all at no charge.

In all, it is worth the membership cost. People with a growing family or a small business would save substantially more than we do. The savings on petrol is significant enough that when we are in either Phoenix or Las Vegas we'll go a mile or two out of our way to purchase petrol at Costco.

One of my clients flew down from Brisbane for a day with two huge suitcases and hired a car, just to pick up the jewellery chest he'd bought and to pick up stuff from Costco.
I've never been in one. Recently, the Americans I was with tried to find one to show me, alas no luck (in Canada & Alaska).

Our business is pretty close to the Auburn store and my staff have reported that there is no great priCe advantage. The specials are good but the day to day stuff is cheaper at Aldi.

I know it has created a bottleneck on Parramatta Rd.

As observed above, a lot of prices are the same as you can get if you have a shopping centre with a competitive mix of supermarkets and similar stores - Lord help you if you live somewhere that one of the 'Big 2' have beaten everyone else out of the market, but then you won't be near a Costco either.

I go there every month or so and have found some items like computer accessories can be $30-50 less than the price asked up the road at a large local 'discount' chain. Some tools and such I have only found at Costco - like 12 point socket sets in tiny sizes I want to drive square headed screws & spent several months elsewhere trying to find without success. Others are the same price or dearer than Bunnings.

I like Ranch Dressing & currently Costco is the only place to get it other than make it yourself, then there are weird Yank foods like tinned chicken breast (shiver) or 'craisins' - dried, sweetened cranberries (not bad) or Cashew Clusters (Yum - have to buy several bags for friends). For a while they were my only source of weisswurst style sausages until Aldi started stocking something close. If you need large drums of fetta cheese or multi-kilo bags of pizza cheese they have them as well as stuff like shelf stable smoked salmon (good for camping) but their 'take home & cook' pizzas are too big to fit in most refrigerators.

Best bet if you have a group of friends who are prepared to share, get one membership and do group buys - the card holder can usually take 2 friends (I've only seen it enforced in school holidays) in with you, you just have to pay with one card (or cash) BUT they will do sub totals on the docket so you can keep different orders separate without argument.

Rod,
You will find that Costco will be like Aldi who have openly admitted that they wll not consider WA until the trading hours are unstuffed.

Go to Costco mainly for their cheap and delicious Tasmanian mussels. Some things are cheaper, some are dearer. Their range is greater and generally their quality leaves the others for dead.