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Comment by 1970-01-01 | Hacker News Reader

1970-01-01

Not only do they negotiate better prices from manufacturers and suppliers, they sometimes negotiate for better products from manufacturers. It's the opposite of Amazon, where the item breaks the first time you use it, or its planned obsolescence is measured in days.

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Back when they carried Hot Pockets, I was convinced that the Hot Pockets they sold contained more pepperoni than the Hot Pockets from Target which contained more pepperoni than the Hot Pockets from Walmart. Unfortunately I never got around to measuring and proving it before Costco stopped carrying Hot Pockets.

Was this recent? My Costco still had Hot Pockets as of last month

Mine hasn't carried it in a couple of years. Maybe they weren't as popular at my store. Next time I'm there, I'll ask them to look in the computer to see which stores carry it.

You can ask them to look in a computer to find out which stores have an item?

That's not too unusual. The other day I was looking for a particular shoe at the Shoe Dept. at my mall, they didn't have it. They were short staffed and the clerk was somebody who usually worked at a store an hour and a half away and she looked to see if they had it at the store in her town where she usually worked because if it was she could bring one to me the next day.

As it was they didn't have it and we just ordered it from their online store.

Auto parts stores do the same thing. If you use Best Buy's web site they will tell you what is in stock at your local store and any other store, and they can pick it off the shelf for you and you can get it at the service desk.

I don't believe Costco always does this, but they have occasionally for me in the past year or so. I believe I've also been told that they can't do it.

It is probably dependent on what type of product you are asking about.

But you don't necessarily need to go to a store. Just call their customer service number and ask them. It has worked for me ;)

They appear to be the anti-Walmart. They want good but sustainable pricing from their vendors for high quality products and want to pay their employees a competitive livable wage.

I recall a comment on here a few weeks ago about how HP printers sold there didn't need you to register them, and never required ink to be installed to use the scanner. Of course this came with a totally different model number.

God, I wish costco existed in my country. The closest thing we have requires you to show them invoices to prove you're a trading business.

For me the product listings of the junk products are so offputting that I never buy them. For products from reputable manufacturers I look to other retailers first because Best Buy, Adorama and other retailers usually get me packages in 1-2 days whereas slow Amazon gets me packages in a slow 5 days.

Checking out on AMZN means rejecting a “free month of Prime” offer multiple times now, which is one more reason to avoid AMZN. They offer 1000 benefits of a prime but don’t say a single word about shipping now because they probably know I canceled my Prime because of slow shipping.

Where I live, their Prime Shipping is excellent, but that would be the only reason I would get Prime. I don't want the other Prime features and will not pay $15/month for just shipping benefits.

Checking out on AMZN means rejecting a “free month of Prime” offer multiple times now

Accept it once, then immediately cancel the autorenewal.

You won't be offered another trial for quite some time; once you are, lather, rinse, repeat.

This seems similar to Temu, where they exert significant pressure on suppliers and offer customers extremely low prices. Suppliers remain tied to Temu due to its large customer base, often sacrificing margin for volume.

From what I've heard, Apple also exerts tremendous pressure on its suppliers and boasts some of the highest margins in the industry. In return for their association with Apple, suppliers gain reputation.

That sounds like Walmart, but not Costco. Costco does have tough buyers who negotiate prices, but they really truly have higher quality standards. This was what I saw being on the other side for a company that sold fruit to both Walmart and Costco. Lower grade fruit was spec'd and sold to Walmart and higher grade fruit was spec'd and sold to Costco.

I think in both cases the supplier would get significant lower margin as a result of providing higher quality goods. Supplier cave to the market power of Walmart and Costco. And Walmart and Costco choose to whether they provide lower prices or better qualities. And they maintain this market power exactly by giving more of the surplus to the customers. In the apple case, the brand and eco-system alone can provide that market power, e.g. people love apple products, thus they can pocket the surplus while still maintaining the position.

For fruit, the price negotiation always tries to drive down the price, but there are something like 10 big buyers of fruit in USA alone, so Coscto and Walmart don't have a monopoly and the fruit sellers go elsewhere when the buyers turn the screws too hard. If Walmart ever becomes the only grocer in the USA, then yes, the farmers are toast. Otherwise, I know of one big fruit grower in my town with a Mediterranean yacht and another that drove in to the office with his Ferrari, inspected fields all day, being flown in the company helicopter, then showed up the next day in his other Ferrari. Huge grower, but then regulation and compliance is killing small growers in USA. Soon you won't be able to farm unless you can have a lawyer on staff.

And better packaging as well (more environmentally friendly).

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