[rr808]

I dont like Costco, it epitomizes American over-consumption. Parking lot overflowing with oversized SUVs with people loading up oversized trolleys with food from food corporations to take back to their oversized fridges and storage basements.

[rpdillon]

Over-consumption? That doesn't follow. I sustain my family on Costco, going once a month or so, but have to feed four people, including two teenagers that consume way more than 2000 calories a day. You keep using the word "oversized", but that assumes the SUV, the fridge, the trolley are not suited for purpose. But they are!

I think what you're really critiquing is people who don't shop frequently, and therefore buy in bulk.

[oezi]

I think the poster is indeed criticizing bulk shopping. I would then to agree that shopping in bulk makes it easier to overprovision or to have things go to waste or being bought superfluously. I am also not sure about it being cheaper in total because my experience with bulk sellers is that they achieve their profit margins by their product mix, so selling you some cheap items as loss leaders or discount items and recouping on others that you buy at the same time. Doing weekly shopping trips at different supermarkets can counteract that by letting you buy more various promotional items.

Of course it comes down to how much personal time you then have to spend on shopping to drive your bill down.

[rpdillon]

I've done the A/B test. Costco saves my family 25% across just food, ignoring other stuff I get there (batteries, shirts, jackets, shoes, underwear, deodorant, etc.)

You're pointing out that you need to plan properly to bulk shop, since you're necessarily modeling future consumption over days/weeks across multiple people, but that's different than over-consumption. It means you have to be analytical and plan, but that's exactly how we do it.

I despise the city living lifestyle, where folks jam themselves in tiny grocery stores to buy 2oz containers of jam and mustard because they don't have enough room to actually fit the food they want. My sister and dad live this way in NYC, and it's annoying as hell every single time I visit them. Wanna throw a meal together? First step: leave the apartment.

[adi_kurian]

There are four Costco's in NYC, all but one in working class neighborhoods, and full of large families getting deals.

[rpdillon]

Yeah, they're in Manhattan. Wasn't trying to paint NYC as homogeneous, just wanted to ground my opinions with experience folks can understand.

[adi_kurian]

I lived two blocks from a Costco in Manhattan for quite some time.

I totally get where you are coming from, just offering a counter. I have observed that the packed like tinned sardines is one kind of life, typically lived by transient folks who desire to live in the hippest neighborhoods, get gouged, live in shitboxes, and then move on and say "I needed more space and convenience", when the space and convenience was always there, just not next to an Equinox.

[tacomonstrous]

I know there's at least one Costco in Brooklyn

[gustavus]

Because of the large quantities my family with 4 children is able to go to Costco once a month and purchase almost everything our family will need for the entire month this means we only need to go to the store one or two additional times during the month for things like milk and bread.

Saying that everyone eating there is indulging in overconsumption is a ridiculous overgeneralization. Not to mention people that are planning parties, bbqs, get togethers etc. Just because you can't think of any reason for people to need large portion sizes besides overconsumption does not mean others are so limited in their imagination.

[skeeter2020]

We have a larger family and Costco combined with access to a decent grocery store that's within walking distance is great: get deals on larger quantity staples and milk, eggs and bread several times a week.

[dghlsakjg]

If you don't like American over-consumption you can go to Carrefour and try out French overconsumption where people load up oversized trollies with corporate food to take to their SUVs in the overflowing parking lot... in France.

Are you under the impression that it is a uniquely American trait to have a bigger house than you need, more car than you need, and a penchant for corporate food? Over-consumption is human nature, not an American invention. America just happens to be able to afford it on a scale that most countries can't. Go to the poorer countries on earth, and you will still see people over-consuming if they have the means.

Maybe it isn't even overconsumption. Maybe it's just a different way of getting things done. Do you think that the people that buy Costco sized packs of toilet paper wipe their ass unnecessarily? Or maybe they just make fewer trips to the store to buy toilet paper.

[oezi]

Since toilet paper is mostly non-perishable it shouldn't really matter, right? But for anything that goes bad there is also a tipping point where you bought too much and have things go to waste.

[dghlsakjg]

In which case you buy a smaller quantity elsewhere. I don’t know anyone who shops exclusively at Costco. Most people buy large quantities of the things they use a lot of at Costco, and also visit grocery stores for other things. Besides, most of what they sell has a long shelf life. With the exception of their very limited produce and Dairy, just about every other perishable food they sell is freezable.

The people I know who shop at Costco aren’t throwing away half of what they buy. They are very often families that are actually pretty efficient about using what they buy. Big families, restaurants, remote work camps (I live in Canada) are the people I see completely filling carts and SUVs at Costco. For them, shopping at Costco is a way to avoid waste in terms of small packages and multiple small trips.

While there are certainly people that shop there and waste what they buy, it’s a pretty overused exaggeration to say that it is any more than a small fraction of their buyers. If you want examples of frivolous consumption, a barebones warehouse store selling staples in bulk is kinda the opposite of that in many ways.

[stevenhuang]

Do you really think families waste half of what they buy at Costco?

Come on now.

[oezi]

I said nothing about that. But there are tipping points where buying too much is actually wasteful.

[Amezarak]

> to take back to their oversized fridges and storage basements.

It's really awesome to have plenty of food storage, with extra and oversized refrigerators, and a deep freeze too.

I keep mine full of vegetables and beef - I have a whole beef slaughtered annually.

Can you explain why this is a bad thing or why it means overconsumption? Why is the stereotypical "European" method of going to the store every day superior to me spending ~10 minutes once every two to three weeks to go to Wal-Mart? What do you do when there are shocks, like weather events, power outages (my generator will tide my fridges over, but will take down a store POS terminal), civic unrest, or pandemics? Or if you're just plain busy? I really appreciate being able to be fully stocked (with rotating backups so I am never actually out) of basically all foods and home staples (like TP). What's the downside?

[titanomachy]

There’s nothing wrong with your way, it’s just a different lifestyle based on how dense of a community you live in. People living in apartments in dense cities don’t have room for a whole cow in their apartment, but there’s probably a few grocery stores in walking distance, so they pick up food more often. Living in a suburb means that you probably don’t walk by a grocery store on your way home from work, and you probably have some space, so it makes sense to shop less frequently and in bulk. These are both valid ways to live that satisfy different sets of preferences.

[Amezarak]

Well, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no reason I can’t go to the store every day - I pass right by a lot of grocery stores. I don’t want to go in them or even think about buying stuff any more than I have to - it’s tedious. I want to always have almost everything I’d want on-hand.

I think the the GP would love this too if it was practical- but it’s not for him. I’d be more interested in hearing the exact reasons why. I don’t think density is itself that related; you can pack in quite a lot with good organization. I do wonder if it’s a rental vs buying thing; in the US the average trailer is about the same size as the average apartment, but you’re way more likely to see extra refrigerators and deep freezes and stuff of that nature in trailers, because they’re often owned and the resident is responsible for all the appliances, whereas the cultural expectation for an apartment is even though you could get more, it’s the landlords’ area to handle. So I wonder how much is just really small cultural things vs practicality. Thus getting more to his dislike of it - but I’d be interested to here more specifically his thoughts.

[pandaman]

I remember seeing pictures from a real estate listing of some euro prince house: he did not have a dryer, just a tiny washer under the counter in the single bathroom, the kitchen had just three-four cabinet sections and an apartment size fridge, no pantry and no closets of any kind, he just had IKEA-level dressers in the bedrooms and mini-split A/C on the wall. You can't really store much food or anything in there w/o turning it into a hoarder house. And this is a royalty house, I imagine common people's apartments are not going to be roomier.

[garbagewoman]

Minor point: you have a whole cow slaughtered annually.

[khriss]

If that's the only thing you can find to dislike about Costco, then they are indeed the saints of the retail world.

[anon7000]

Costco is one of the few stores in America that attempts to give great value to consumers. Most supermarkets just don’t

[SoftTalker]

Aldi seems to. I thought of them as I read about Costco, not because of the size of their stores (which are generally quite small as supermarkets go) but because of the limited choices. Aldi normally has everything I need but doesn't have a lot of choice in any individual thing. It makes shopping there feel very efficient.

[skeeter2020]

Walmart does this too, and it's one of the worst experiences/value-propositions I've ever experienced. It might be better in the US but in Canada it's expensive, poor quality and painful: pick three.

[SoftTalker]

Walmart stores are huge though, particulary the SuperWalmarts with supermarket and department store combined. Aldi is compact, maybe 4 or 5 aisles, a refrigerated section, and a frozen food section.

[TulliusCicero]

God I wish we had Aldi in the PacNW. I know, TJ's is technically owned by Aldi Nord, but it's really not the same.

[esskay]

Not sure that counters their point...or even relates to it.

[pizzafeelsright]

Enforcing appropriate sized consumption is a terrifying thought.

[tomcam]

What sizes of SUV, trolleys, fridges, and storage basements would meet with your approval?