> Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me. The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco
Good example of how people can build identities through their brand choices and purchasing habits.
It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant if another company releases a better product. Yet the crossover between brands, identities, and lifestyles is deeply held by many people.
I know some will try to turn this into a criticism of Americans, but in my travels and international business experience I wouldn’t even rank Americans in the top 10 for integrating brands and identity. In some countries I had to make a conscious effort to try to wear clothes from acceptable brands and swap my functional laptop bag for something more stylish to avoid letting my purchasing habits become a point of judgment from others. It’s actually refreshing to come back to America where as long as you’ve made some effort to look more or less appropriate for the occasion few people care about the brand of your clothes, laptop bag, or car. Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes.
It sounds like you’ve just been around toxic and superficial people in your international travels and then extrapolated from them to their whole countries.
Unfortunately, they have people like that everywhere.
South Korea is one example that I have intimate knowledge of where one's consumer habits (the clothes one wears, the car one drives, the logo on one's handbag) is the ultimate signal of status.
You're automatically pre-judged by complete strangers without having to say a single word.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but it is in fact an unspoken rule over there.
> I know some will try to turn this into a criticism of Americans, but in my travels and international business experience I wouldn’t even rank Americans in the top 10 for integrating brands and identity.
Can you give a few examples of those brand-centric cultures? Which product categories do they follow? I've never seen anything like this, so if I were to go to one of the places that has this culture, I should probably know about it in advance.
> "What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.” - Andy Warhol
Unfortunately I think America is starting to lose this way a bit, with the influx of newer premium brands and the fracturing of American consumers into endless lifestyle personas. But there's still some truth left in it.
> where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest
To say that "the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest" by using Coke as an example is a significant oversimplification and is cherry picking examples to prove a point. The richest consumers buy plenty of consumer goods that the poorest cannot even dream of buying or even renting.
If there was a truffle-infused Coke with edible 24k gold flakes that cost 10x as much (and actually tasted good) you can be sure pretty much only the richest consumers would be drinking it, and that everyone who couldn't afford it would be doing everything in their power to keep up with the Joneses.
What percentage of "the poorest" own their own home or go on international trips more than once a year let alone owning multiple homes, luxury cars, and private jets?
Andy Warhol's quote is about aspiration and perceived attainment. The average person is not aspiring to drink a gold flake truffle-infused Coke.
The implication is the lack of a rigorous class hierarchy in America. Not that the rich don't live different lifestyles or consume more. But that niche luxury products were considered effete and un-American.
(Andy Warhol was almost certainly also being ironic - that the richest people in America publicly shared the same trashy taste as average Americans).
The closest analogue today might be an iPhone. Rich or poor, if you want the "best" phone you have an iPhone. Sure, there are gaudier and more expensive phones out there. But you're essentially using the same product as the richest Americans.
> It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant if another company releases a better product.
For those of us who grew up in the era of the "Are you a Mac or a PC" [1], many Americans are intimately familiar with the concept of brand identity.
> foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant
But you are, yourself, defining yourself partially here through your own purchasing habits. In fact you are doing it to a far more universal degree than most of the ones you criticize.
Not that I'm immune to it, but nor do I claim to be. I think it's useful signal just like anything else. Watch: My quintessential American habit is that I wear roughly the same nondescript black T shirt, black boxer briefs, black socks, and maybe an unlabeled black hoddie that I purchase off of Amazon, mostly just sorting by ratings. If at any point I reach into my closet and the stock-flow system that is my laundry habits have deemed it such that I am actually out of stock of any of these items, I immediately go to Amazon and purchase another 6- or 4- or 12-pack. If you feel you understand me better as a person after reading all that, you probably do.
> Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes.
I agree. You can go into Costco and see a store full of individuals who happen to be shopping at Costco that day, or you can go to Costco and see the same people as slaves to an imagined Costco lifestyle that you can then write about for 800 words. It says more about the author than the shoppers. This article is the worst kind of lifestyle trend engineering.
Part of growing up is realizing that the places where a person eats or shops, what music and entertainment they consume, what clothes they wear - are entirely uncorrelated with their personality and character and worth. And cringing hard at your own past teenage past self who confused such superficial identity markers with personality.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the article's author is only on their first step of this realization.
Of course, one can overgeneralize the correlations between consumption preferences and personality (character is vague and worth practically undefined) but it seems absurd to claim they are entirely uncorrelated. Take the Big Five traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extroversion. Each has numerous obvious implications for consumer preferences. Do you mean something else by "personality" or perhaps "growing up"?
Right, I noped out of this article when I realized it felt like a guy making up a whole population he could do some elevated punching down at to offset some ostensible self deprecation. What a chore.
I'm quite curious what initially instills this juvenile idea in us. I expect it's advertising which actively seeks to foment this nonsense by implying that if you buy this or that you will become this or that.
Costco's gimmick is relieving you of choice and price shopping. They find the best stuff and don't mark it up. If Consumer is your identity yet you fear executing its labors, let Costco step in and become your denomination of consumerism, complete with tithe, proscribed usury, and communion hot dog.
Identifying as a rabid consumer is not a requirement of appreciating Costco. The end result of that gimmick is that it feels like they're looking out for their customers and offering them a valuable service as opposed to trying to suck them dry. Buy this blender; don't buy this blender; they don't care, just know that this is probably the one that will best meet your needs, it's the best deal you're going to find on it anywhere, and if you're unhappy with it for any reason they'll take it back.
Also the reason that small specialty shops, and mom-and-pop grocery, fruit, dairy, bakeries and butcher shops are largely gone. They just cannot compete with Costco and Sam's Club/Walmart's buying power.
A specialty shop can probably survive Costco much more easily than they can survive Walmart or any other conventional (American) grocery store. The grocery store carries 20 or 30 different olive oils, to select one example. Odds are all the snobbiest will find something they like... odds are even decent that in a blind taste test even the snobbiest would find something that they would be horrified to discover came from a normal grocery store.
Costco carries one or two options for a given thing, and are outright missing many things you might want. As nice as Costco is for buying things on a budget when you're going to use them up fully, I think it would be a bit of a challenge to make them your only grocery source. Doable as a sort of self-imposed challenge, no problem, there's certainly enough for that, but you'd be missing a lot of things, and/or wasting money on huge quantities of things you won't use. The quality is generally pretty decent (I may have more brand loyalty for "Kirkland" than almost any other brand) but not necessarily the most premium options. If you are the type to even consider the specialty shop in the first place you're more likely to be unsatisfied by Costco than a grocery store.
Actual specialty shops survive just fine. There's plenty of value in real expertise. Run-of-the-mill stores selling the same commodity at a higher price are simply inefficient.
The idealized small mom-and-pop shops were largely put out of business by WWII and rationing more than anything. Supermarkets and department stores have more or less been the norm in the US since long before Wal-Mart began spreading across the country.
There are still plenty of produce stands, bakeries, and butcher shops in the country. Most of what was driven out of business were small bodega-style corner stores.
I just got (at 38) a Costco membership this year, thanks to my in-laws gifting us a membership. There's another huge discount retailer here in Boston (BJs) that I have gone to for years, but Costco is another 10+ min drive away so I've resisted thus far. I will say... I'm still adjusting.
- No aisle signs or labels anywhere. I understand the retail strategy here but the lack of efficiency in MY experience kills me. Clearly they can't move the bakery, or meat department. But after ~5 visits I still have no idea where some basic products can be found.
- Who is buying a kayak, or shed while shopping for groceries?
- I continually make the mistake of going during the weekend when it is the most packed store on Earth. There were no less than 3 Cybertrucks in the parking lot.
I don't have the "must-buy" item yet, but every time I go, I feel like I need to take a nap after.
I have talked my wife out of us both nearly impulse-buying a mini greenhouse at Costco multiple times.
And the worst part is, I regret it. We need a greenhouse now and greenhouse prices are through the roof! I can't afford NOT to impulse buy a greenhouse at Costco 18 months ago now! I'll never make that mistake again.
Long ago we found that we saved more money shopping at Costco than the membership cost by a long shot. We even get the executive membership because they will refund the difference of you don’t get at least that back rewards (we always have).
For things that are acceptable, it’s usually hard to beat Costco. You have to give up variety, possibly brand choice, and maybe even buy more than you’ll use, but it works out to be significantly cheaper. There are categories, however, where Costco is never the cheapest (soft drinks) or where the commodity store brand is significantly worse than alternatives (batteries).
> where the commodity store brand is significantly worse than alternatives (batteries).
Kirkland batteries actually last longer than Duracell. They're some of the best alkaline batteries you can get, especially considering the price. Sure, lithium batteries will last longer, but the mAh per dollar is lower, so they'll still cost more.
It’s probably my own battery hygiene, but I’ve had so many Kirkland batteries leak over the years that I no longer trust them. I still buy batteries at Costco, but haven’t had the same issue with the name brand leaking.
I don't use a lot of AA/AAA batteries, so I'll buy a pack from Costco and it'll sit in my drawer for 5+ years without issue. They go into a TV remote or bathroom scale or whatever and last a couple years with no issue.
> No aisle signs or labels anywhere. I understand the retail strategy here but the lack of efficiency in MY experience kills me. Clearly they can't move the bakery, or meat department. But after ~5 visits I still have no idea where some basic products can be found.
What are you having trouble finding, out of curiosity? In my Costco everything is pretty much in the same general area. They might move stuff a little bit, but it's pretty consistent.
> Who is buying a kayak, or shed while shopping for groceries?
I see this as separate trips for the larger items. Nobody is buying appliances either when you buy meat or paper towels. Also, Costco never fully replaces a full grocery store in my experience. You just don't need things in the sizes they sell them for many goods. Certain foodstuffs are really designed for restaurants and not people. Like, who is buying the 40 lb bags of flour besides people VERY into baking or restaurants?
I think I've gotten the hang of it fairly well. Coffee is over by the coolers but not in them, cat little is on the back wall, specialty cheese is near the meat, Kirland cheese is near the end of one of the coolers, cheap winter jackets are somewhere in the middle between the pants and the tortilla chips, motor oil is at the far right, bread on the left near the old people, and the big expensive life-optional stuff is at the front.
Everything else is either on the way between those points, or it doesn't exist today (because even if it is there, I'll never find it).
The #1 thing for me at Costco is the gas. I have the credit card, so I get 5% cash back on the first $7,000 of gas I purchase in a year. Being as that, as of now I am spending ~$70/week on fuel, I will not hit the max for the year.
But 5% cash back on ($70*52=)$3640 means I get $182/yr by default back to cover the $130 annual cost of the executive membership. Doesn't sound like a good deal until you also factor in that their fuel is typically 10 cents a gallon or more cheaper than the next least expensive fuel place, which means that for my roughly 650 gallons of fuel a year baseline costco gas saves me an additional $65.
So yeah, nothing really amazing, but the fact that having the membership lets me pocket something in the neighborhood of $120/yr on top of the occasional shopping trip and access is nice.
I saw someone leaving buc-ees at 10:30pm who just purchased a huge fire pit and was franticly trying to jam it in the back of a large chevy. I can only imagine they went for stacks due to the poor planning
It's much closer to a restaurant supply store that happens to be open to normal people.
If I want to make tacos tonight, and I try to shop for that at Costco, I'm making tacos for a week or more. There's no small size of anything, which is the entire point.
I cannot fathom the people who do weekly or so grocery shopping there. How can you possibly plan out a months worth of pantry for a family like that? It's a skill I certainly don't have but families did for millennia when running small farms and such. Maybe the Navy could teach me how.
The author's view is alien to me. It paints Costco as some sort of cultural retirement home. A boring place for boring people, not just a big store in a warehouse. I know that displaying brand affinity towards some companies is seen as tasteful and praiseworthy in our cultures, but I didn't realize many people extended this view to something as basic and pragmatic as the place they go to buy flour or whatever.
I'm from East Asia, where every supermarket brand is basically the same aside from a few different products.
When I moved to North America, this whole concept of tiered supermarkets felt really weird and exotic to me. Like, this is the most basic stuff you need, and you still need to tier it down?
I'm kinda used to it now, but it still feels very American to me.
I grew up in a post soviet country. To me Costco, has perfected the soviet ideal of shopping more than any soviet economy ever could.
In a Costco, we are all equal. I could be shopping for the same set of beige slacks right next to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company and never know it. We'll own the same Waterpik. Identical towels. Our lawn furniture will look the same.
Everything is purchased at a fair price. And we know it's a fair price because it's Costco. The workers are happy because they are given a fair wage and respect by an executive team that doesn't think they're better than them.
Yes, you have to admit to yourself that a certain part of shopping at Costco is rejecting iconoclasm. You must be okay being part of a crowd. But the other side of that - are you able to surrender? Can you deny yourself when you find something that is legitimately good? Must you be different to the point of self-detrimental?
So yes, I will go to a store that has better olive oil or coffee or oranges. But how can you not love Costco?
Good comment, but IMHO the main reason to not love it so much is the annual membership fee. It sits well with cult cultivation. Other stores don't require it and they don't form a cult around them.
Costco derives the majority of their revenue from the membership fee, followed by services. They actually make very little on the products themselves as they have a hard cap on markups at like 11% or something around there.
The membership is the whole reason they can offer the deals they do.
But the fee isn't an initiation ritual. It's what partially subsidizes the low prices, often at the expense of people who buy the membership and underutilize it, spending more money upfront than they save on later purchases.
I have a Costco that is walking distance from my office. If I need to decompress, I walk to Costco for lunch solo, get a hot dog and a slice of pizza, sit down, and watch both the people and what's in their cart. It's so diverse and pretty fascinating.
Fair, I did leave out the soda that comes with the hotdog. But that could be a diet soda. (and seems to frequently be, given that my local Costco has 4 diet coke spouts, as opposed to 1-2 of any others)
I did look up the calorie count for both. 550-ish for the hotdog, 650-ish for the pizza.
I shop at Costco not because of the price or the bulk formats. It's not always a good deal vs other places. The value to me is not having to worry about quality. Any product that is not satisfactory gets returned with no hassle.
That's yet another thinly disguised case of punching down: the author wants you to know that they are not the type of person who lives close to a Costco, typically in the suburbs. This author's attitude is so tiresome.
Sent me to the shelf, but one has to appreciate the word choice. Evokes the peanut oil spilling everywhere, the reach for geologic terminology captures the lithic aspects of the peanut butter underneath.
I think the most extreme hoi polloi, kings and paupers experience I've had in the U.S is at the DMV. No matter how rich you are, you have to show up in person with everyone else, from the poorest mentally ill welfare/SSDI recipient who has to get someone to help them because they can't read the forms in any language, to the extremely wealthy. Everyone has to sit there and wait on those generic plastic chairs.
This article seemed mildly interesting to perhaps kill 5 minutes. I clicked through only to be slapped by a cookie consent and a newsletter signup pop up, together they entirely obscure the content on mobile. Too much friction, so I decided to just close it, this saved me from wasting 5 minutes of my life reading, which I instead proceeded to use cleaning a toilet. All in all, a good outcome I would say.
I've become a Costco person in recent years. At least in my perception, inflation has affected grocery stores unevenly:
Whole Foods: eye-bogglingly expensive (and no, I don't think it always was)
Wegmans: substantially more expensive than a few years ago, and a noticeable decline in produce quality
Trader Joes: incredible value on many prepared foods, but not the best source for staples like rice or paper products.
Costco is not inflation-proof by any means but they have pretty much 0 margins and they're reliably the best value on just about whatever they sell. The selection can be limited in some ways compared to a supermarket, and they can be a bad place to be health conscious (as it can be hard to resist massive containers of ultra cheap and delicious treats of various kinds) or to try to try to be an ethical consumer (and please spare me the HN cynical line on this, I get it, I have no real agency and I'm pathetically guilt-ridden): I've read bad things about their meat sourcing, they rarely have coffee with bona fides like fair trade or shade grown, I see controversial products like bird's nest soup, etc.
It's probably very store specific. If you know the Market Basket in Somerville, MA, it's got a legendary produce section. I've been to locations in NH with crap.
IMO H-Mart is the safest bet in the Boston area for high quality produce (outside of farmers markets, natch)
The nearest costco to me is an hour and half away. I've been in costco only once, and I guess I got it, but I also was like: do i need this? This year they're opening one nearby (~10mins). I have this nagging growing feeling of fear I will be joining.
I've only been to Costco a handful of times in my life. It seems like each time, there were hordes of people standing lifelessly in a huge line waiting to check themselves out(sometimes with help from an employee), which took longer than it should. Then, once that task was accomplished, they'd then stand in another huge line waiting to leave. Is this the typical experience or did I just happen to pick the worst times/locations?
I happily pay more at places like Publix to -not- have to do that.
This was my experience, too. I have tried going at noon on weekdays, as soon as the store opens, and every other time folks on the internet have recommended. Every single time, it was an absolute slog to get through aisles full of oblivious people blocking areas with their carts and (hilariously) getting mad at you for asking them to move their cart.
Also, this may be my own bias coloring my perception but there was a palpable undertone among some of the shoppers of “at least we’re not Walmart customers”.
I’m sure quite a few Costco members enjoy the treasure hunt model they offer but I’d much rather have an option to order online and go pick up what I need or, failing that, labeled aisles.
To Costco’s credit, though, they refunded my membership fee in full as soon as I asked to cancel. And their return policy the one time I had to use it was exceptional as well. It’s a shame the rest of the experience has to be such a sensory overload.
In my experience, get there as early as possible and it's not bad. But that's the standard for these membership stores, although Sam's Club has the edge being able to use their app to scan your items and pay without having to stop anywhere (other than the line to get out.)
Costco actually has a better checkout experience than most places IMO. They always have basically all lanes open, and the employees are efficient at moving people through.
I love Wegmans for most groceries but their checkouts seem to be getting worse.
That's the takeaway - that people are supposed to be bored in line? I wasn't insulting the people, I was describing what to me is the awful human experience of shopping at Costco.
I deliberately take my time in self-checkout lines. If they are going to cheap out by not having cashiers, I'm not going to hustle to make their lines move faster.
I will brave the downvotes and say: I don’t like Costco.
It’s not out of snobbishness, their quality is excellent at excellent prices.
My problem is that I find I spend more at Costco than at conventional grocery stores like Trader Joe’s.
The paradox is, it’s cheaper, but I spend more. I buy things I wouldn’t normally buy, and ant higher quantities. Even worse, I somehow eat it all quite quickly.
I spend more and eat more when I shop at Costco.
Unfortunately that’s neither healthy for my wallet nor for my waistline.
But yes, you can buy many different items there. Many come in large packages. The public can be found there shopping too. You are not required to purchase every item. Welcome to the 90s and holy shit thanks for the journalism.
I let my Costco membership lapse because it's cheaper, healthier and more pleasant to buy 1) small quantities, of 2) fresh foods, in a 3) nice store, that is preferably 4) nearby, and 5) quietly forget to buy all the other crap you don't need.
Frasier, at a free sample station: I do thank you, but I'm afraid I'm rather particular about the provenance of my shellfish. To subject a scampi to the radiation of a microwave is not cooking, madam, it's an execution! My god, Niles, is that a '98 Chateau Latour in your cart?
Niles: I've already secured six cases! They're over there, just between the Kirkland Signature Leaf Blowers and the 5 pound bags of "Kickin' Queso Jalapeño Poppers"!
I resisted joining Costco for many years, because it seemed too culty, or just too popular in general (with my assumption being that most popular things are bad). Eventually they sucked me in though, and yes, it really is good.
> Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me. The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco
Good example of how people can build identities through their brand choices and purchasing habits.
It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant if another company releases a better product. Yet the crossover between brands, identities, and lifestyles is deeply held by many people.
I know some will try to turn this into a criticism of Americans, but in my travels and international business experience I wouldn’t even rank Americans in the top 10 for integrating brands and identity. In some countries I had to make a conscious effort to try to wear clothes from acceptable brands and swap my functional laptop bag for something more stylish to avoid letting my purchasing habits become a point of judgment from others. It’s actually refreshing to come back to America where as long as you’ve made some effort to look more or less appropriate for the occasion few people care about the brand of your clothes, laptop bag, or car. Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes.
It sounds like you’ve just been around toxic and superficial people in your international travels and then extrapolated from them to their whole countries.
Unfortunately, they have people like that everywhere.
Not necessarily.
South Korea is one example that I have intimate knowledge of where one's consumer habits (the clothes one wears, the car one drives, the logo on one's handbag) is the ultimate signal of status.
You're automatically pre-judged by complete strangers without having to say a single word.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but it is in fact an unspoken rule over there.
> I know some will try to turn this into a criticism of Americans, but in my travels and international business experience I wouldn’t even rank Americans in the top 10 for integrating brands and identity.
Can you give a few examples of those brand-centric cultures? Which product categories do they follow? I've never seen anything like this, so if I were to go to one of the places that has this culture, I should probably know about it in advance.
> "What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.” - Andy Warhol
Unfortunately I think America is starting to lose this way a bit, with the influx of newer premium brands and the fracturing of American consumers into endless lifestyle personas. But there's still some truth left in it.
> where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest
To say that "the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest" by using Coke as an example is a significant oversimplification and is cherry picking examples to prove a point. The richest consumers buy plenty of consumer goods that the poorest cannot even dream of buying or even renting.
If there was a truffle-infused Coke with edible 24k gold flakes that cost 10x as much (and actually tasted good) you can be sure pretty much only the richest consumers would be drinking it, and that everyone who couldn't afford it would be doing everything in their power to keep up with the Joneses.
What percentage of "the poorest" own their own home or go on international trips more than once a year let alone owning multiple homes, luxury cars, and private jets?
Andy Warhol's quote is about aspiration and perceived attainment. The average person is not aspiring to drink a gold flake truffle-infused Coke.
The implication is the lack of a rigorous class hierarchy in America. Not that the rich don't live different lifestyles or consume more. But that niche luxury products were considered effete and un-American.
(Andy Warhol was almost certainly also being ironic - that the richest people in America publicly shared the same trashy taste as average Americans).
The closest analogue today might be an iPhone. Rich or poor, if you want the "best" phone you have an iPhone. Sure, there are gaudier and more expensive phones out there. But you're essentially using the same product as the richest Americans.
Fair point.
What about cars or houses?
> It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant if another company releases a better product.
For those of us who grew up in the era of the "Are you a Mac or a PC" [1], many Americans are intimately familiar with the concept of brand identity.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac
>build identities through [...] purchasing habits
> foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant
But you are, yourself, defining yourself partially here through your own purchasing habits. In fact you are doing it to a far more universal degree than most of the ones you criticize.
Not that I'm immune to it, but nor do I claim to be. I think it's useful signal just like anything else. Watch: My quintessential American habit is that I wear roughly the same nondescript black T shirt, black boxer briefs, black socks, and maybe an unlabeled black hoddie that I purchase off of Amazon, mostly just sorting by ratings. If at any point I reach into my closet and the stock-flow system that is my laundry habits have deemed it such that I am actually out of stock of any of these items, I immediately go to Amazon and purchase another 6- or 4- or 12-pack. If you feel you understand me better as a person after reading all that, you probably do.
> Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes.
I agree. You can go into Costco and see a store full of individuals who happen to be shopping at Costco that day, or you can go to Costco and see the same people as slaves to an imagined Costco lifestyle that you can then write about for 800 words. It says more about the author than the shoppers. This article is the worst kind of lifestyle trend engineering.
I would agree. The implicit (or actually pretty explicit in a couple of sentences) class disdain is so tiring.
Part of growing up is realizing that the places where a person eats or shops, what music and entertainment they consume, what clothes they wear - are entirely uncorrelated with their personality and character and worth. And cringing hard at your own past teenage past self who confused such superficial identity markers with personality.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the article's author is only on their first step of this realization.
Of course, one can overgeneralize the correlations between consumption preferences and personality (character is vague and worth practically undefined) but it seems absurd to claim they are entirely uncorrelated. Take the Big Five traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extroversion. Each has numerous obvious implications for consumer preferences. Do you mean something else by "personality" or perhaps "growing up"?
Right, I noped out of this article when I realized it felt like a guy making up a whole population he could do some elevated punching down at to offset some ostensible self deprecation. What a chore.
I'm quite curious what initially instills this juvenile idea in us. I expect it's advertising which actively seeks to foment this nonsense by implying that if you buy this or that you will become this or that.
Costco's gimmick is relieving you of choice and price shopping. They find the best stuff and don't mark it up. If Consumer is your identity yet you fear executing its labors, let Costco step in and become your denomination of consumerism, complete with tithe, proscribed usury, and communion hot dog.
Identifying as a rabid consumer is not a requirement of appreciating Costco. The end result of that gimmick is that it feels like they're looking out for their customers and offering them a valuable service as opposed to trying to suck them dry. Buy this blender; don't buy this blender; they don't care, just know that this is probably the one that will best meet your needs, it's the best deal you're going to find on it anywhere, and if you're unhappy with it for any reason they'll take it back.
Also the reason that small specialty shops, and mom-and-pop grocery, fruit, dairy, bakeries and butcher shops are largely gone. They just cannot compete with Costco and Sam's Club/Walmart's buying power.
A specialty shop can probably survive Costco much more easily than they can survive Walmart or any other conventional (American) grocery store. The grocery store carries 20 or 30 different olive oils, to select one example. Odds are all the snobbiest will find something they like... odds are even decent that in a blind taste test even the snobbiest would find something that they would be horrified to discover came from a normal grocery store.
Costco carries one or two options for a given thing, and are outright missing many things you might want. As nice as Costco is for buying things on a budget when you're going to use them up fully, I think it would be a bit of a challenge to make them your only grocery source. Doable as a sort of self-imposed challenge, no problem, there's certainly enough for that, but you'd be missing a lot of things, and/or wasting money on huge quantities of things you won't use. The quality is generally pretty decent (I may have more brand loyalty for "Kirkland" than almost any other brand) but not necessarily the most premium options. If you are the type to even consider the specialty shop in the first place you're more likely to be unsatisfied by Costco than a grocery store.
Actual specialty shops survive just fine. There's plenty of value in real expertise. Run-of-the-mill stores selling the same commodity at a higher price are simply inefficient.
The idealized small mom-and-pop shops were largely put out of business by WWII and rationing more than anything. Supermarkets and department stores have more or less been the norm in the US since long before Wal-Mart began spreading across the country.
There are still plenty of produce stands, bakeries, and butcher shops in the country. Most of what was driven out of business were small bodega-style corner stores.
99% of the reason for the mom-and-pop groceries dying out is that "our" Federal Gov't decided that it would stop bothering to enforce the law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act
And note how the modern Democratic Party - the originators of that law back in 1936 - utterly failed to give a crap about the issue.
If there is wine on the dog, i I'm 100% in.
I just got (at 38) a Costco membership this year, thanks to my in-laws gifting us a membership. There's another huge discount retailer here in Boston (BJs) that I have gone to for years, but Costco is another 10+ min drive away so I've resisted thus far. I will say... I'm still adjusting.
- No aisle signs or labels anywhere. I understand the retail strategy here but the lack of efficiency in MY experience kills me. Clearly they can't move the bakery, or meat department. But after ~5 visits I still have no idea where some basic products can be found.
- Who is buying a kayak, or shed while shopping for groceries?
- I continually make the mistake of going during the weekend when it is the most packed store on Earth. There were no less than 3 Cybertrucks in the parking lot.
I don't have the "must-buy" item yet, but every time I go, I feel like I need to take a nap after.
I have talked my wife out of us both nearly impulse-buying a mini greenhouse at Costco multiple times.
And the worst part is, I regret it. We need a greenhouse now and greenhouse prices are through the roof! I can't afford NOT to impulse buy a greenhouse at Costco 18 months ago now! I'll never make that mistake again.
Long ago we found that we saved more money shopping at Costco than the membership cost by a long shot. We even get the executive membership because they will refund the difference of you don’t get at least that back rewards (we always have).
For things that are acceptable, it’s usually hard to beat Costco. You have to give up variety, possibly brand choice, and maybe even buy more than you’ll use, but it works out to be significantly cheaper. There are categories, however, where Costco is never the cheapest (soft drinks) or where the commodity store brand is significantly worse than alternatives (batteries).
> where the commodity store brand is significantly worse than alternatives (batteries).
Kirkland batteries actually last longer than Duracell. They're some of the best alkaline batteries you can get, especially considering the price. Sure, lithium batteries will last longer, but the mAh per dollar is lower, so they'll still cost more.
https://youtu.be/8VumAfhdhAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ_tGjXm0Ng
It’s probably my own battery hygiene, but I’ve had so many Kirkland batteries leak over the years that I no longer trust them. I still buy batteries at Costco, but haven’t had the same issue with the name brand leaking.
Wild. I wonder what could cause that?
I don't use a lot of AA/AAA batteries, so I'll buy a pack from Costco and it'll sit in my drawer for 5+ years without issue. They go into a TV remote or bathroom scale or whatever and last a couple years with no issue.
> No aisle signs or labels anywhere. I understand the retail strategy here but the lack of efficiency in MY experience kills me. Clearly they can't move the bakery, or meat department. But after ~5 visits I still have no idea where some basic products can be found.
What are you having trouble finding, out of curiosity? In my Costco everything is pretty much in the same general area. They might move stuff a little bit, but it's pretty consistent.
> Who is buying a kayak, or shed while shopping for groceries?
I see this as separate trips for the larger items. Nobody is buying appliances either when you buy meat or paper towels. Also, Costco never fully replaces a full grocery store in my experience. You just don't need things in the sizes they sell them for many goods. Certain foodstuffs are really designed for restaurants and not people. Like, who is buying the 40 lb bags of flour besides people VERY into baking or restaurants?
My first trip to Costco was also fairly recent.
I think I've gotten the hang of it fairly well. Coffee is over by the coolers but not in them, cat little is on the back wall, specialty cheese is near the meat, Kirland cheese is near the end of one of the coolers, cheap winter jackets are somewhere in the middle between the pants and the tortilla chips, motor oil is at the far right, bread on the left near the old people, and the big expensive life-optional stuff is at the front.
Everything else is either on the way between those points, or it doesn't exist today (because even if it is there, I'll never find it).
Seems good enough for now.
The #1 thing for me at Costco is the gas. I have the credit card, so I get 5% cash back on the first $7,000 of gas I purchase in a year. Being as that, as of now I am spending ~$70/week on fuel, I will not hit the max for the year.
But 5% cash back on ($70*52=)$3640 means I get $182/yr by default back to cover the $130 annual cost of the executive membership. Doesn't sound like a good deal until you also factor in that their fuel is typically 10 cents a gallon or more cheaper than the next least expensive fuel place, which means that for my roughly 650 gallons of fuel a year baseline costco gas saves me an additional $65.
So yeah, nothing really amazing, but the fact that having the membership lets me pocket something in the neighborhood of $120/yr on top of the occasional shopping trip and access is nice.
The American mind must be studied.
I saw someone leaving buc-ees at 10:30pm who just purchased a huge fire pit and was franticly trying to jam it in the back of a large chevy. I can only imagine they went for stacks due to the poor planning
It's odd to me thinking people consider Costco a grocery store. I realize they have groceries but that certainly isn't what I use it for.
Half the store is food - it's an excellent grocery store.
It's much closer to a restaurant supply store that happens to be open to normal people.
If I want to make tacos tonight, and I try to shop for that at Costco, I'm making tacos for a week or more. There's no small size of anything, which is the entire point.
I cannot fathom the people who do weekly or so grocery shopping there. How can you possibly plan out a months worth of pantry for a family like that? It's a skill I certainly don't have but families did for millennia when running small farms and such. Maybe the Navy could teach me how.
Really? Even meats? Or drinks?
if nobody is buying them, you have to wonder why they are for sale. my guess is someone is buying them
The author's view is alien to me. It paints Costco as some sort of cultural retirement home. A boring place for boring people, not just a big store in a warehouse. I know that displaying brand affinity towards some companies is seen as tasteful and praiseworthy in our cultures, but I didn't realize many people extended this view to something as basic and pragmatic as the place they go to buy flour or whatever.
I'm from East Asia, where every supermarket brand is basically the same aside from a few different products. When I moved to North America, this whole concept of tiered supermarkets felt really weird and exotic to me. Like, this is the most basic stuff you need, and you still need to tier it down? I'm kinda used to it now, but it still feels very American to me.
I grew up in a post soviet country. To me Costco, has perfected the soviet ideal of shopping more than any soviet economy ever could.
In a Costco, we are all equal. I could be shopping for the same set of beige slacks right next to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company and never know it. We'll own the same Waterpik. Identical towels. Our lawn furniture will look the same.
Everything is purchased at a fair price. And we know it's a fair price because it's Costco. The workers are happy because they are given a fair wage and respect by an executive team that doesn't think they're better than them.
Yes, you have to admit to yourself that a certain part of shopping at Costco is rejecting iconoclasm. You must be okay being part of a crowd. But the other side of that - are you able to surrender? Can you deny yourself when you find something that is legitimately good? Must you be different to the point of self-detrimental?
So yes, I will go to a store that has better olive oil or coffee or oranges. But how can you not love Costco?
> But how can you not love Costco?
I got my law degree there!
I like money.
Good comment, but IMHO the main reason to not love it so much is the annual membership fee. It sits well with cult cultivation. Other stores don't require it and they don't form a cult around them.
Costco derives the majority of their revenue from the membership fee, followed by services. They actually make very little on the products themselves as they have a hard cap on markups at like 11% or something around there.
The membership is the whole reason they can offer the deals they do.
But the fee isn't an initiation ritual. It's what partially subsidizes the low prices, often at the expense of people who buy the membership and underutilize it, spending more money upfront than they save on later purchases.
I have a Costco that is walking distance from my office. If I need to decompress, I walk to Costco for lunch solo, get a hot dog and a slice of pizza, sit down, and watch both the people and what's in their cart. It's so diverse and pretty fascinating.
Hot dog and a slice? That's your calorie needs for the day.
If I eat just a hot dog or just a single slice, I'll still be hungry.
Eating a hot dog and a slice, or two slices, and I won't be hungry...for an hour or two.
...I need to get a doctor and ask about a GLP-1.
Unless you are particularly sedentary, 1200 calories is pretty low for daily consumption.
I'm thinking their hotdogs are huge, like 1/2 lb?
And the slices are huge also.
And most people probably get a 32oz cup of sugar water with them.
Maybe I'm overestimating.
Fair, I did leave out the soda that comes with the hotdog. But that could be a diet soda. (and seems to frequently be, given that my local Costco has 4 diet coke spouts, as opposed to 1-2 of any others)
I did look up the calorie count for both. 550-ish for the hotdog, 650-ish for the pizza.
The hot dogs are 1/4 lb, with the bun it's probably 500-600 calories.
LOL, don't mess this up for me.
I shop at Costco not because of the price or the bulk formats. It's not always a good deal vs other places. The value to me is not having to worry about quality. Any product that is not satisfactory gets returned with no hassle.
> The bakery muffins really are smaller now than I remember them being as a kid
Costco bakery muffins are HUGE. If they're smaller now than they used to be, I'd argue maybe that's a good thing.
> They’re always in far-off places
My Costco is only about 1 1/2 miles away. Literally walked there for lunch once.
> the building, an aircraft hangar–size warehouse spectacle operated very much in line with casino design: a place with no outside source of light
Odd, the author mentions living in Portland, and every Costco in the Portland metro area has skylights.
> They’re always in far-off places
That's yet another thinly disguised case of punching down: the author wants you to know that they are not the type of person who lives close to a Costco, typically in the suburbs. This author's attitude is so tiresome.
I'm guessing the title is a reference to Pulp - Common People
And browse and grab and queue because there is nothing else to do!
“…and let the deals, wrap their arms around me”
—Death Cab for Cutie
You’re probably right, but Pet Shop Boys also have a take on the theme - https://youtu.be/eQLpNpSXewo?si=bYSSBpoDAL2HKMI3
> petroliferous
Sent me to the shelf, but one has to appreciate the word choice. Evokes the peanut oil spilling everywhere, the reach for geologic terminology captures the lithic aspects of the peanut butter underneath.
I think the most extreme hoi polloi, kings and paupers experience I've had in the U.S is at the DMV. No matter how rich you are, you have to show up in person with everyone else, from the poorest mentally ill welfare/SSDI recipient who has to get someone to help them because they can't read the forms in any language, to the extremely wealthy. Everyone has to sit there and wait on those generic plastic chairs.
My motto in life is, "If I need it and it's available at Costco, I buy it at Costco"
I don't feel the need to demonstrate my unique personality through where I buy groceries.
This article seemed mildly interesting to perhaps kill 5 minutes. I clicked through only to be slapped by a cookie consent and a newsletter signup pop up, together they entirely obscure the content on mobile. Too much friction, so I decided to just close it, this saved me from wasting 5 minutes of my life reading, which I instead proceeded to use cleaning a toilet. All in all, a good outcome I would say.
I've become a Costco person in recent years. At least in my perception, inflation has affected grocery stores unevenly:
Whole Foods: eye-bogglingly expensive (and no, I don't think it always was)
Wegmans: substantially more expensive than a few years ago, and a noticeable decline in produce quality
Trader Joes: incredible value on many prepared foods, but not the best source for staples like rice or paper products.
Costco is not inflation-proof by any means but they have pretty much 0 margins and they're reliably the best value on just about whatever they sell. The selection can be limited in some ways compared to a supermarket, and they can be a bad place to be health conscious (as it can be hard to resist massive containers of ultra cheap and delicious treats of various kinds) or to try to try to be an ethical consumer (and please spare me the HN cynical line on this, I get it, I have no real agency and I'm pathetically guilt-ridden): I've read bad things about their meat sourcing, they rarely have coffee with bona fides like fair trade or shade grown, I see controversial products like bird's nest soup, etc.
I was a coffee snob, but now I'm buying coffee in Costco, you just have to do it online:
https://www.costco.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-ethiop...
https://www.costco.com/p/-/mayorga-buenos-das-usda-organic-l...
I have no idea why do they not sell these(light roast) ones in warehouses.
Whole Foods started wildly expensive, toned down a lot after the Amazon bought them, and then creeped back up to wildly expensive the last few years.
Huh, really? Re: Wegmans. For me they still have the best produce quality by far.
Agree their prices have gone up in general though.
It's probably very store specific. If you know the Market Basket in Somerville, MA, it's got a legendary produce section. I've been to locations in NH with crap.
IMO H-Mart is the safest bet in the Boston area for high quality produce (outside of farmers markets, natch)
The nearest costco to me is an hour and half away. I've been in costco only once, and I guess I got it, but I also was like: do i need this? This year they're opening one nearby (~10mins). I have this nagging growing feeling of fear I will be joining.
Don't fear it. Join us. There's a real reduction in your cognitive load, honestly. It's nice.
I've only been to Costco a handful of times in my life. It seems like each time, there were hordes of people standing lifelessly in a huge line waiting to check themselves out(sometimes with help from an employee), which took longer than it should. Then, once that task was accomplished, they'd then stand in another huge line waiting to leave. Is this the typical experience or did I just happen to pick the worst times/locations?
I happily pay more at places like Publix to -not- have to do that.
This was my experience, too. I have tried going at noon on weekdays, as soon as the store opens, and every other time folks on the internet have recommended. Every single time, it was an absolute slog to get through aisles full of oblivious people blocking areas with their carts and (hilariously) getting mad at you for asking them to move their cart.
Also, this may be my own bias coloring my perception but there was a palpable undertone among some of the shoppers of “at least we’re not Walmart customers”.
I’m sure quite a few Costco members enjoy the treasure hunt model they offer but I’d much rather have an option to order online and go pick up what I need or, failing that, labeled aisles.
To Costco’s credit, though, they refunded my membership fee in full as soon as I asked to cancel. And their return policy the one time I had to use it was exceptional as well. It’s a shame the rest of the experience has to be such a sensory overload.
In my experience, get there as early as possible and it's not bad. But that's the standard for these membership stores, although Sam's Club has the edge being able to use their app to scan your items and pay without having to stop anywhere (other than the line to get out.)
Publix' pricing is obscene though.
Costco actually has a better checkout experience than most places IMO. They always have basically all lanes open, and the employees are efficient at moving people through.
I love Wegmans for most groceries but their checkouts seem to be getting worse.
How are people supposed to act while waiting in line to check out?
That's the takeaway - that people are supposed to be bored in line? I wasn't insulting the people, I was describing what to me is the awful human experience of shopping at Costco.
I deliberately take my time in self-checkout lines. If they are going to cheap out by not having cashiers, I'm not going to hustle to make their lines move faster.
I will brave the downvotes and say: I don’t like Costco.
It’s not out of snobbishness, their quality is excellent at excellent prices.
My problem is that I find I spend more at Costco than at conventional grocery stores like Trader Joe’s.
The paradox is, it’s cheaper, but I spend more. I buy things I wouldn’t normally buy, and ant higher quantities. Even worse, I somehow eat it all quite quickly.
I spend more and eat more when I shop at Costco.
Unfortunately that’s neither healthy for my wallet nor for my waistline.
There was the best university in the world -- Costco University, in the movie Idiocracy.
It's giving "Frasier Crane goes to Costco."
But yes, you can buy many different items there. Many come in large packages. The public can be found there shopping too. You are not required to purchase every item. Welcome to the 90s and holy shit thanks for the journalism.
I let my Costco membership lapse because it's cheaper, healthier and more pleasant to buy 1) small quantities, of 2) fresh foods, in a 3) nice store, that is preferably 4) nearby, and 5) quietly forget to buy all the other crap you don't need.
Frasier, at a free sample station: I do thank you, but I'm afraid I'm rather particular about the provenance of my shellfish. To subject a scampi to the radiation of a microwave is not cooking, madam, it's an execution! My god, Niles, is that a '98 Chateau Latour in your cart?
Niles: I've already secured six cases! They're over there, just between the Kirkland Signature Leaf Blowers and the 5 pound bags of "Kickin' Queso Jalapeño Poppers"!
Martin: Oh I LOVE those, where?
I resisted joining Costco for many years, because it seemed too culty, or just too popular in general (with my assumption being that most popular things are bad). Eventually they sucked me in though, and yes, it really is good.
Ah, the terrible agony of realizing the hoi polloi aren't entirely wrong about everything after all.
WELCOME TO COSTCO I LOVE YOU
I'm going to law school there next semester.
It honestly disturbs me how true so many of the predictions from the Idiocracy have been.
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