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Comment by biastoact | Hacker News Reader

It is not unlike Prime Video and Prime Music (among others). When you run a membership program you create offers that increase the perceived value of the membership and engagement with your ecosystem. Similar is Costco gas, people wouldn’t drive out of their way for the discount if they didn’t already pay the membership. And while you are there you might as well pick up four times the bread you need, more milk than you consume in a week, a new camera (that was probably cheaper online), and a hot dog on your way out. Getting the value out of that $100 membership leads people to consume far more than they normally would.

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A few things you can do at Costco without a membership:

  * Eat at the food court
  * Buy alcohol (in certain states, see below)
  * Get an eye exam
  * Get your hearing checked
  * Fill prescriptions at the pharmacy

States where you can buy alcohol w/o a membership:

  * Arizona
  * California
  * Connecticut
  * Delaware
  * Hawaii
  * Indiana
  * Massachusetts
  * Michigan
  * Minnesota
  * New York
  * Texas
  * Vermont

P.S. Looking for a better source, but here's a general list: https://thekrazycouponlady.com/tips/money/6-things-you-can-d...

San Francisco's Costco does not let you into the food court.

I think I once read somewhere that they allow it if the food court is located outside

Except you don't have to be a member to eat at Costco.

You have to be a member, or accompanying a member, to walk in the door. The hot dogs lie beyond the checkpoint.

The membership checkers are there to give members the feeling of exclusivity and belonging. They do not generally turn people away and will accept basically any reason from "meeting someone" to no response at all, in my experience. But I haven't been to more than half dozen Costco's, so can't speak broadly.

I think their primary purpose is to ensure that nobody who isn't a member or forgot their membership card gets in the checkout line and slows it down.

I suspect "where are you going with that $2000 TV?" plays a role, too.

You do not need to be a member to access the food court, alcohol sales, or pharmacy. You will need to stop at member services and wait in line to get a temporary pass. It's a deliberate hassle, but by various laws Costco can't stop you from accessing those services.

Almost every Costco I've been to, the food vending is a window on the outside of the building (so before the checkpoint).

And, at the ones where the food vending is on the inside, it's on the "paid" side of the cash registers. You can get to this area just by claiming you're "going to member services", since that's also on that side, and it's where you go when you forget your card (and so can't show membership at the checkpoint).

Source: Have forgotten my card a lot.

* Almost every Costco I've been to, the food vending is a window on the outside of the building (so before the checkpoint).*

I've never seen a Costco with the food vending in a window on the outside of the building. I've always seen it against the wall after the checkout. Which is also after the checkpoint.

I think a window on the outside of the building only works in moderate climates. I don't see it working in Phoenix or Minneapolis.

Many Southern California and Florida locations have the entire Costco food-court outside.

You can definitely get alcohol w/o a membership. I think it might be a state-by-state thing, but in some states it’s illegal to require a membership for alcohol purchases, so you can buy alcohol even if you don’t have a Costco membership.

The food court I'm not as sure about, but in both cases I've walked into a Costco with no membership and they were fine with it.

Neither being a member or being accompanied by a member is required to walk in the door. You don't even need to be a member to shop there provided you have a Costco Cash Card [0]. As well, there are at least a few Costcos where the concession stand is outside [1]

[0]https://www.costco.com/Costco-Cash-Card.product.10024438.htm... [1]https://www.google.com/maps/place/Costco+Wholesale/@37.25296...

So if I give my Costco-member friend $100 and ask her to buy me four $25 Costco Cash cards, would that let me make four trips without buying my own membership? That seems like all I'd need in a year...

This is accurate. You need only to have a costco cash card to get the Costco price on the goods in store. That cash card does not need to encompass the entire price of the transaction, as your credit card can make up the rest.

I've heard this touted as a "hack" but this makes absolute economic sense for Costco -- they get an advance on your purchase and get you into the store to potentially see the value in signing up.

Oh, I absolutely intended to buy more than $25 of stuff each visit!

I just didn't imagine they'd let me say "Um, yeah, put $1 on my Costco Cash card, and the other $399 on my Visa".

I tried that for a while in lieu of membership. Their employees certainly gave me a hard time over this: stink eye, calling the manager, chiding me for doing this loudly and openly, etc.

Thus, while it is possible, their devout employees don't like it and go out of their way to make one feel like a leper for not being a member.

You can walk in the exit, and straight to the food court.

While true I don't think this is widely known, and even less widely practiced. For those who are unaware, you just need go in through the exit to avoid the card checkers and that's where the food is.

We have a Costco here in FL where the food court is outside, order window, soda machines, tables. Everything

Same here in CA. I imagine it depends largely on the typical weather at that location.

That's not true everywhere. A number of Costco's have the food court outside the building.

Just tell them you're going to the pharmacy, they'll happily point you to where it is and you can then go wherever you want.

I'm only consuming "far more than I normally would" if I'm routinely throwing away things I bought from CostCo, unconsumed.

I don't. Nor does anyone else I know.

It's just consumption moved around in time.

I know, I know, it may be aesthetically distasteful to you to see people walking out with 36 rolls of toilet paper instead of six. It may be hard not to sneer at the poor people trapped on the capitalist treadmill.

But you should get over it, because in most ways you're better off when people shop at CostCo, because buying that way and storing things at home for a time is much more packaging and environmentally efficient that packing things into little bundles to be bought every day. And buying like that also minimizes the little bites being taken out by middlemen who are doing the packaging into little bundles. And a car trip taken to CostCo that fills the car is more efficient than lots of little trips to the grocery store.

I mean, I agree, in the sense that I also like to buy in bulk and save a lot on things I use a lot this way. But it is true that a membership makes people shop at a store more to "get their money's worth" for the membership.

> And a car trip

I suspect this is the real source of the hostility, rather than aesthetics: Costco represents, in general, a larger-land-footprint, car-dependent, suburban (or even semi-rural) lifestyle.

There's likely something of a false dichotomy at work here, as well, in that there could be Costco-compatible dense-city living, but that doesn't seem to be true currently.

I shop at Costco regularly (once every two weeks at least, sometimes weekly). Yes I gasp drive a car. But I put less than 3k miles on my car a year since I work from home. Maybe shopping at Costco isn't the problem for most people. It's working in an office.

To clarify, my point wasn't about the driving itself, but rather, what both driving and Costco (and bulk purchases in general) represent, which is incompatible with a walkable, high-density city.

I'm confident some people also object to the car use itself, but that's way too general a topic.

Your examples don't makes sense, as bread and milk (which Costco sells as multi-packs) keep fine in storage. Buying perishables and junk food would be a better example.

Costco electronics prices are competitive and have the best return policy and practice in the industry.

In what world does milk "keep fine in storage"?

The modern world. Milk no longer goes bad quickly.

Maybe neither you nor grandparent know about UHT treatment of milk, and how it's common outside America and uncommon inside.

Seems to be at every single grocery store I have ever shopped in for the past at least 5 years.

Not every milk is UHT but every grocery store offers it.

> Not every milk is UHT but every grocery store offers it.

But what about Costco (or other bulk-only sources), which is, really, the whole point of the thread (and original comment)?

I guess it depends on the definition of "quickly" and also where you live.

In some cities I've lived, the expiration date of milk was often two or three weeks out. In other cities, it was 10 days maximum.

I think it's because dairies (and cows) are not equally plentiful in every part of the country.

One thing I have noticed is that in the places where regular milk expires in 10 days, the organic milk (which one family member drinks) doesn't expire for a month or more.

UHT pasteurization

Sell by dates for eggs and milk vary by state in many cases, for milk I believe Montana has the strictest one (10-12 days after pasteurization) but I've seen references to at least 20 states having their own regulations.

Sell by dates are basically a fiction. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety...

only limitation is: infant formula and false advertising (defined in https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/9/317.8 )

I wouldn't call UHT milk common. According to Wikipedia[0], it's less than 10% in Denmark, Greece, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Singapore and the U.K.

It seems the only places where it's "common" are Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_process...

Fresh whole milk freezes ok, and only takes a few days to thaw out in a fridge. Same with bread, btw.

(To be fair, I think I'm the only person I know who does this)

I've known people to freeze bagels. Apparently they toast more or less equivalently compared to bagels stored above freezing.

This is correct. I don't eat enough bread (or bagels) to warrant buying entire loaves at a time, even, and they will grow mold before I can eat them. Freezing them works great for me and prevents mold.

Yeah, you can't tell the difference. You can even microwave them for 30 seconds instead of slowly defrosting and if you're toasting you can't really tell the difference.

Bread and milk are considered by most people to be perishable -- they go bad within a few weeks of purchase.

Non-perishable goods are canned or sealed items that can be kept for years in cool, dark, dry places.

Frozen bread lasts for ~6 months to a 1 year. Which is hardly going to be an issue for most people.

Unopened milk does not last nearly as long. Still, it can last for ~3 weeks at home depending on how it's preserved, how old is was when you got it, and if you keep your fridge cold enough. Which again should be plenty if you actually use milk.

Most people don't freeze bread and I think most people have probably experienced not finishing a carton of milk fast enough or having bread go moldy on them.

Really the trick to bulk buying (besides liberal use of your freezer) is only bulk-buying things you actually use a lot of. I'll buy tomatoes at Costco because I'll eat them but I don't eat nearly enough apples for buying a massive thing of apples to make sense.

Interesting re their return policy, could you expand on that?

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