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Comment by gesman | Hacker News Reader

Costco == Trust.

Trust in quality, Trust is service, Trust in prices.

To the point that when I need to buy quality stuff at good prices and avoid doing lenghty research to filter out scam, fakes and crap (aka: Amazon, Ebay and their little siblings) - Cosco wins.

There is no other business where people come in with an intention to buy $50 worth of stuff and then consistently spending 5-10 times more each and every time.

Fun fact: It took me 10 years to stop calling it "Price club"

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This really. I hate searching for a product on Amazon. I usually get like 3-5 of the exact same item from different sellers under different names and it just feels scummy. I'll go to Amazon if there's a specific product I already have in mind, but otherwise I'll shop on Target's website.

> There is no other business where people come in with an intention to buy $50 worth of stuff and then consistently spending 5-10 times more each and every time.

IKEA

Recently bought a high end TV from Costco even though it was 100 dollars more. I just trust that Costco will do right by me if anything goes south.

I don't know about televisions, but on many items they negotiate longer warranties with the manufacturer. That itself can be worth a lot. For instance I know if you buy a refrigerator on their branded credit card from them you get something like 3 years parts and labor, which is often 3 times longer than the warranty from other places.

That said - it's hard to beat BHPhoto - another trusted brand for electronics and photography specifically.

Costco has 90 day returns, hard to beat.

BH doesn't charge sales tax (via Payboo card) and has 30 days returns. On $2K TV it is ~$200 savings.

If my OLED TV stops working randomly after a year it's going to be a lot more for the repair.

Even better when you have their card. I bought my TV through them and using their card. The additional warranty gives me a total of 5 years.

I think there is a lot of room in ecommerce for a "trusted brand" like costco where you can just thoughtlessly buy from because I trust they did the research.

Amazon used to be that around 2013/14, but now I prefer to spend more and buy things elsewhere because I don't have to do so much research to make sure the product doesn't suck.

I wouldn't even mind an affiliate-funded intermediary that just listed the top #5 things from WireCutter for a given category, + some picks from Consumer Reports.

(As long as they didn't link to Amazon, it's not safe to buy there.)

Ironically, brandless tried to be this for lower dollar items. But there is another story on HN right this second about brandless failing and shutting down.

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