7 ms·

>Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I worked at a competitor to Costco; I would argue this isn't quite accurate, and that this st

by rm999 5y ago

>Their business model incentivize them to have top notch quality. I worked at a competitor to Costco; I would argue this isn't quite accurate, and that this statement applies to Amazon about as much. The key distinction between Amazon and Costco is Costco sells a small (1-10 thousand) number of SKUs while Amazon wants to have as many as possible (100s of millions). Costco can vet every product, and can quickly discontinue products that have a lot of returns or complaints. Amazon scales in the opposite direction and concentrates on building tools for sellers to sell whatever will sell. But here's the rub: by limiting the number of SKUs Costco has to appeal to the masses. You won't get the best TV, or air purifier, or cheese, or pants, etc at Costco. You will get something that has been vetted to be good enough for most people and provides a good price point. When you buy their white labeled products (Kirkland et al) you will sometimes actually get substandard products as they shift suppliers without telling their customers, but that's another topic. If you really want the highest quality you have to either have to seek out brands that optimize for this or dig into the supply chain and understand where your products are actually coming from. For something like an air purifier I would choose Amazon over Costco any day because it allows me to choose the brand and model I want.

zwily 5y ago
For most purchases, what you described is exactly what I want - something that will be solid without having too research too much. For the few things I really care about, I will research and source differently.
jjeaff 5y ago
I have found Kirkland brand products to usually be the highest quality available without spending crazy amounts of money. One product that comes to mind is the Kirkland olive oil. There was a report that found that many of the major brands and even high dollar Italian brands of olive oil actually had other types of oil added to them. Kirkland was one of the few, if not only major brand that was pure olive oil.
- frenchman99 5y ago
  I'm always amazed at what Americans put up with in terms of food. In France, where I live, when you buy olive oil, it's olive oil: simple.
  - reaperhulk 5y ago
    That may not entirely be true, at least as recently as a few years ago. https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/plan-controle-2016-des-huiles-dolive https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/plan-controle-2016-des-h...
    - kergonath 5y ago
      As this page says, it depends quite a bit on where the oil is from. It’s easy enough (if a bit expensive) to find great oil from small producers.
  - maximus-decimus 5y ago
    That's an hilarious statement given the horse meat scandal.
    - frenchman99 5y ago
      As you say, it was a scandal and we did not accept it.
      - maximus-decimus 5y ago
        That's a fair point. Although I feel like if the same thing happened in the states, head would roll just for the fact a lot of people see horses as pets, not cattle. It would be akin to people learning they've been fed dog meat against their will. I would literally expect people to get murdered over that.
- snotrockets 5y ago
  I'm certain that there are worse olive oils than Costco/Kirkland, but theirs isn't what I'd call good olive oil. It might be good enough for large scale commercial kitchens, who need to work on a thin margin, but it's not fit for any serious home cook, or an upscale restaurant. It may be pure, but it is a blend of tens, if not hundreds of olive oils. And it's enough for one of the oils in the blend to be not-that-great (or outright bad) to make the whole blend less than the sum of its parts. Just like wine, the best olive oils are mostly small-batch, made from olives from just a few orchards, preferably from just one olive cultivar that is listed on the label, and have a taste specific to that and their terroir. In California, I found not bad oils at ~$25 for half a liter, which isn't too bad of a price, considering the exceptional oils could be double that.
iamdbtoo 5y ago
This used to be exactly what I used Amazon for before the listings became polluted. Since then I've switched to Costco for the reason the other commenter mentions: They pick solid products for everyday things and I can trust their incentives on some level. I have no confidence in any of the products on Amazon anymore that aren't big brands and even then I'm uneasy.
x0x0 5y ago
That kind of sounds great -- for most things, you just want (a) good enough, and (b) not fake. Amazon has gotten really bad at both of those. I recently needed to replace an air filter, and there were endless complaints about fakes on amazon. I ended up having to buy it directly from a specialty manufacturer which was a pain.
sriram_sun 5y ago
In my mind there is a"spend without much thought" threshold. That is about 10:1 for Costco: Amazon.
tw04 5y ago
> You won't get the best TV, or air purifier, or cheese, or pants, etc at Costco. And I'd argue it's the exact opposite. If you want a mid-range product and not top of the line you'll never find it at Costco. High end stuff they're great at, and that's pretty much always what I want. But you want a $15 pair of shoes because you're painting in them and know they'll get ruined? Look elsewhere.
- Eezee 5y ago
  A 15$ shoe is not mid-range though. That's absolute bottom of the barrel. And looking at the Costco website their shoes can be had for 18$ and the most expensive shoe i can see is 35$, which i would still classify as cheap and not even mid-range.
bitcuration 5y ago
The reason Costco is able to do this is because of the "buyer" team of Costco. There have been many articles talked about Costco's secret recipe. I believe Sam's club did the same to some extent though not as good as Costco's team. Amazon operated on a complete different model, more leaning towards ebay than Costco. Comparing Amazon to Costco is like orange and apple. Amazon's model let the 3rd party seller resolve the market and quality, well, didn't quite work out when met with Chinese sellers who're from a society of bottom line driven all the way business philosophy. Unfortunately, Walmart has followed Amazon foot steps but fortunately not quite enough to run into Amazon's problem.

by rm999 5y ago

zwily 5y ago

For most purchases, what you described is exactly what I want - something that will be solid without having too research too much. For the few things I really care about, I will research and source differently.

jjeaff 5y ago

I have found Kirkland brand products to usually be the highest quality available without spending crazy amounts of money. One product that comes to mind is the Kirkland olive oil. There was a report that found that many of the major brands and even high dollar Italian brands of olive oil actually had other types of oil added to them. Kirkland was one of the few, if not only major brand that was pure olive oil.

frenchman99 5y ago
I'm always amazed at what Americans put up with in terms of food. In France, where I live, when you buy olive oil, it's olive oil: simple.
- reaperhulk 5y ago
  That may not entirely be true, at least as recently as a few years ago. https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/plan-controle-2016-des-huiles-dolive https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/plan-controle-2016-des-h...
  - kergonath 5y ago
    As this page says, it depends quite a bit on where the oil is from. It’s easy enough (if a bit expensive) to find great oil from small producers.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  That's an hilarious statement given the horse meat scandal.
  - frenchman99 5y ago
    As you say, it was a scandal and we did not accept it.
    - maximus-decimus 5y ago
      That's a fair point. Although I feel like if the same thing happened in the states, head would roll just for the fact a lot of people see horses as pets, not cattle. It would be akin to people learning they've been fed dog meat against their will. I would literally expect people to get murdered over that.
snotrockets 5y ago
I'm certain that there are worse olive oils than Costco/Kirkland, but theirs isn't what I'd call good olive oil. It might be good enough for large scale commercial kitchens, who need to work on a thin margin, but it's not fit for any serious home cook, or an upscale restaurant. It may be pure, but it is a blend of tens, if not hundreds of olive oils. And it's enough for one of the oils in the blend to be not-that-great (or outright bad) to make the whole blend less than the sum of its parts. Just like wine, the best olive oils are mostly small-batch, made from olives from just a few orchards, preferably from just one olive cultivar that is listed on the label, and have a taste specific to that and their terroir. In California, I found not bad oils at ~$25 for half a liter, which isn't too bad of a price, considering the exceptional oils could be double that.

iamdbtoo 5y ago

This used to be exactly what I used Amazon for before the listings became polluted. Since then I've switched to Costco for the reason the other commenter mentions: They pick solid products for everyday things and I can trust their incentives on some level. I have no confidence in any of the products on Amazon anymore that aren't big brands and even then I'm uneasy.

x0x0 5y ago

That kind of sounds great -- for most things, you just want (a) good enough, and (b) not fake. Amazon has gotten really bad at both of those. I recently needed to replace an air filter, and there were endless complaints about fakes on amazon. I ended up having to buy it directly from a specialty manufacturer which was a pain.

sriram_sun 5y ago

In my mind there is a"spend without much thought" threshold. That is about 10:1 for Costco: Amazon.

tw04 5y ago

> You won't get the best TV, or air purifier, or cheese, or pants, etc at Costco. And I'd argue it's the exact opposite. If you want a mid-range product and not top of the line you'll never find it at Costco. High end stuff they're great at, and that's pretty much always what I want. But you want a $15 pair of shoes because you're painting in them and know they'll get ruined? Look elsewhere.

Eezee 5y ago
A 15$ shoe is not mid-range though. That's absolute bottom of the barrel. And looking at the Costco website their shoes can be had for 18$ and the most expensive shoe i can see is 35$, which i would still classify as cheap and not even mid-range.

bitcuration 5y ago

The reason Costco is able to do this is because of the "buyer" team of Costco. There have been many articles talked about Costco's secret recipe. I believe Sam's club did the same to some extent though not as good as Costco's team. Amazon operated on a complete different model, more leaning towards ebay than Costco. Comparing Amazon to Costco is like orange and apple. Amazon's model let the 3rd party seller resolve the market and quality, well, didn't quite work out when met with Chinese sellers who're from a society of bottom line driven all the way business philosophy. Unfortunately, Walmart has followed Amazon foot steps but fortunately not quite enough to run into Amazon's problem.