Why is my Costco the
only review you need to read? Because I can be an idiot. A crazy,
crazy idiot. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I happily fess up
to my own stupidity all the time – as I’m sure you’ve all read
about on my share-too-much Facebook posts. Most people don’t.
It’s a well proven fact (I promise it’s well proven though I have
neither the time nor inclination to reference it – just believe me)
that the more you spend on something the more you are going to
convince yourself, and others, of it’s value. For instance, if you
were to spend a stupid amount seeing some kind of shonky psychic,
rather than admit to yourself, and others, that you were an idiot and
that they were shonky, you will try your utmost to find meaning in
whatever bullshit spewed from their mouth just so that you can
justify to yourself (and others) having spent a weeks wages on total
utter crap. It’s a huge part of the placebo effect. You need to
have an investment and a belief in something in order to trick your
mind into believing its validity or worth.
What does this have to
do with Costco? Well, Costco employs a cunningly evil but utterly
brilliant marketing technique!! They must have psychologists working
24/7 coming up with ways to trick the consumer. Rather than
rewarding loyalty with….. rewards, they would like YOU to pay THEM
for the honour of being loyal to them. Yes, I happily collect my
Flybuys points at Coles and
occasionally get to deduct $50 off my grocery bill – gives me a
nice warm fuzzy. But Costco? Costco want you to PAY them $60 for
the privilege of shopping in their store (this is a yearly cost!!!).
Prior to going to Costco I had convinced myself that it was ‘totally
worth it’ and that I would ‘definitely get my moneys worth’ but
now I’m thinking – I’M AN IDIOT!!!! How on Earth did I think
that it was ok to PAY a massive corporation so they would ‘let’
me shop there. It’s like they want you to think that they are part
of some secret elite club only for the rich. I mean C’mon….. a
$450 000 ring?!? Now, granted, I don’t know anyone rich enough to
splash out 450k on a ring and I’m going out on a limb here when I
guess that – maybe, just maybe, people who can afford a ring like
that wouldn’t buy one at Costco?!?!
It’s like the Costco
psychologists think we are all dumb enough to believe that because
they have a diamond ring for sale, that costs approximately the same
as the average house, then they MUST be a quality shop full of
quality products at *special* prices. They are right. We are dumb
and idiotic. More than 15000 people in Brisbane spent $60 to become
a member BEFORE the doors had even opened (me included). Which
brings me to the part of my review that really pains me to write
about.
I am sad to admit that
I woke up at 3:30 am this morning and dragged my eldest daughter, my
sister and my niece 1 hour North of their comfortable beds in a quest
to secure a spot in the line to be one of the first people in the new
Costco store. How did it end up like this? I’m usually a rational
person. I don’t queue up for things, never go to the boxing day
sales and generally stay away from large crowds of people for fear of
being contaminated with all their germs.
It all started a few
weeks ago. My friend Paul and I were discussing the upcoming opening
of the Costco store. I had heard a lot of good things about it from
friends in Sydney (none of these friends have ever been dumb enough
to pay for membership though – they use someone elses membership).
Paul and I, both being avid cookers and shoppers, decided that it
would be loads of fun to attend the opening day of Costco. Paul
enlisted his wife to accompany him and I enlisted Kristy. No matter
how much I begged and pleaded with Ben he flat out refused to request
a day off work to attend the opening of Costco – I really can’t
understand him sometimes. It’s probably just as well, Ben is
always a Killjoy when shopping. He would have followed me around
saying ‘we don’t need that’, ‘we don’t need that’ and ‘we
definitely DON’T need that’. (for the record Ben we DO need 48
rolls of toilet paper because your offspring seem to go through 1
roll a day each!! And we DO need the 2kg tub of Nutella because if
that is not available for me to have a spoon of every now and then I
might accidentally on purpose lose one of those offspring in a fit of
madness).
So Paul, myself and our
shopping partners decided that we would all drive to Costco on the
opening day fairly early, to avoid traffic, but a sensible hour
nonetheless. Being organised people (I mean Paul & Co – not me
I’m not organised in the slightest half the time) we decided to go
and collect our membership cards at the store a few days before the
opening. When we arrived we were told about how busy the opening day
was going to be and how many people were going to camp out. We were
even told that Costco was going to be feeding the campers at 2am and
4am. Somehow we got all swept up in the excitement and decided that
it would be a good idea to bring my caravan to the Costco carpark the
night before and sleep in the caravan overnight.
We saw this being
beneficial for a few reasons. 1 – we wouldn’t have to get up
early and battle traffic, 2 – we would be able to fill the caravan
up with all our great purchases and 3 – we would ensure that we had
an excellent parking spot. The staff there told us this was a great
idea and even took us out to show us an excellent drive through spot
to park the van.
Thankfully, the next
day, Paul rang to check the information we had been given and that it
was ok to bring a caravan. He was told that it was no problem to
bring the caravan into the carpark – once they were open – but
that the carpark would be closed all night and patrolled by security.
Paul rang me and relayed the information. Thinking it strange that
their staff had such different ideas about what was going on I rang
Costco and asked to speak to a manager so I could find out what was
actually going on. When I rang the girl who answered said the
managers were busy and took down my number, but I had little hope of
them ringing back. Wanting to sort out what we were doing I rang the
Costco Head Office in Sydney. Head office assured me that it was
fine to take the caravan and that the car park would not be closed
overnight as they had no means of sealing it off. So plans went
ahead.
Later that afternoon I
received a phone call from a woman who said she was the store manager
at Northlakes. I explained to her what info I was after and she told
me that the car park would be open but that under no circumstances
were we to bring a caravan. When I questioned her she went off like
a rocket. I said something along the lines of ‘I’m just so
confused, everyone we have spoken to is telling us different
information’. She replied with (you need to imagine this being
said with a very thick accent) ‘WELL I’M THE STORE MANAGER AND IM
TELLING YOU NO. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO BRING A CARAVAN ON
TO OUR PREMISES.’
‘So’ I enquired.
‘If I was a grey nomad passing through Northlakes on Thursday with
my caravan I wouldn’t be able to park in your car park as I would
be able to at Bunnings…. or anywhere else for that matter?’
“NO!!” she raged “I will have security here and you will NOT be
permitted to enter!!”.
This should have been a
warning to me but even though I got off the phone with a strong urge
to ring head office and complain not once did the thought cross my
mind that we shouldn’t go. Funnily enough the same lady rang me
back 30 minutes later and said that she had pulled some strings and
we would now be permitted to bring the van. She was ever so polite
and warm when she rang me back which made me wonder if she either had
some kind of personality disorder OR an ulterior motive in mind.
My sister Kristy went
with the ulterior motive theory. ‘I can just see it’ she said.
‘We will be stumbling out of our van with bed hair and there will
be news crews everywhere filming us’. Good point. I reckon it
would make great news headlines – diehard Costco fans camping in
caravan the night before opening.
After conferencing
Kristy, Paul and I decided to just get up early on opening day to
ensure we got a car park. As we were driving to Costco, at 4 a.m. I
had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that it would not
go to plan. I was imagining traffic backed up everywhere and us
having to park a km away from Costco because we hadn’t camped
overnight. Little did I know that there was a far worse reality in
store. When we arrived there, 3 hours before opening, we found that
there were only EIGHT other people there!!!! The carpark was
empty!!! Only one woman slept in her car overnight – not thousands
– as we had been led to believe.
It all went down hill
from there. Firstly, a manager came out to move the line and to ask
us to make new lines. By this stage there were more than 8 people
there. When Paul enquired about the new line the manager snapped at
him (in a very rude way) ‘would you like me to take my shoes off so
you can count my toes – I said FIVE!!!!’. I’m sure I saw some
smoke start to come out of Paul’s ears.
THEN the breakfast that
we had been promised turned out to be ‘cookies’ which were passed
out with….. HANDS!! Yes!! I watched in horror as the same manager that
yelled at me on the phone, wiped her nose with her fingers and then
used those same unwashed fingers to transfer cookies from one carton
to the next. They then passed the cartons around and everyone could
take one. I assure you I watched intently and it was impossible to
grab one cookie without manhandling 3 others. I dread to think of
the spread of infectious diseases!!! Someone needs to give that
Costco manager food preparation and handling information STAT!! I
was absolutely appalled but nonetheless too invested to opt out now
when I was *so* close.
The managers at Costco
all seemed to have accents. Either American or Brittish/Scottish.
I’m assuming that they thought regular Aussies would not have the
required skills to convince masses of people to spend money to be
able to shop, so they had to import ones already trained in the
brainwashing business. These managers stood around all day and
seemed so consumed with their own power that they didn’t need to
bother with anything petty like…. customer service. After all they
were doing us a favour by allowing us to shop there!! I didn’t see
one of them say anything nice, or do anything nice to anyone. I felt
like shouting out to them ‘I have a university degree – don’t
you dare treat me like I’m some dumb shit’ (although in their
defence I did wake up at 3:30am to attend a Costco opening so that
really doesn’t speak too highly of my intelligence).
Anyway I could rave on
all day about their rude and self important behaviour but I won’t.
I will cut to the chase… are the savings worth it?
There were a few things
that I thought were a good buy. In a similar way that Aldi also has
good specials and cheap prices on certain things. I took in a list
of price per kilo of my most used foods and found that in
approximately half of them, Costco was somewhat cheaper. There were
things there were exceptionally cheaper. Toilet paper being one of
them. I do not think I saw a single trolley exiting the store
without a giant pack of dunny rolls. There were also things like
coconut oil, agavae syrup, maple syrup and baking flour that were
significantly cheaper. Their meat, fruit & vege plus bakery
were not all that cheap and their non food items were a novelty, but
not really lower in price than other places. Kristy was going to buy
a Samsung Galaxy S5 but their *special* price was only $8 lower than
Office Works regular price. The giant block of Cadbury that everyone
had to take a selfie with was 50% more expensive than the normal price per kilo of
regular Cadbury blocks at Woolies. If you are thinking ‘but they
do have to make a special mold to make that 10kg block of Chocolate’
– STOP. I’m almost quite certain that if you opened up that 10kg
block you would find it filled with smaller blocks.
What I really liked was
that they had different products there. We don’t have a great deal
of variety in Australia so it’s always exciting to see some new
stock come into the country. I marvelled at the shower caddy
(although I didn’t purchase it as it was $55 and not even rust
proof!!) and eyed off the bamboo draw inserts but did not purchase a
single non consumable item. And certainly not through lack of
trying. I just couldn’t find anything that I thought was good
enough or worth the money.
Which brings me to the
next unpleasant experience that Kristy and I faced. As we went
through registers side by side I was informed that Kristy could not
use my membership card. Kristy had not had a chance to get one
herself and I was told that with my membership card I was allowed to
invite 2 guests to the opening. The cashier sighed exasperatedly and
said ‘if you look in the fine print it says that no one else can
use your card – you will have to pay for her items and she can give
you cash later’. As Kristy had an $800 phone in her trolley plus
hundreds of dollars in groceries I whispered to her ‘Give me your
card and I’ll pay on that and transfer you the funds’. The
cashier, having heard what I said told me ‘We’ve been doing this
for ages we WILL be checking that the name on the credit card matches
the name on the membership card – NO EXCEPTIONS.’ (I’m not
sure what he meant by ‘doing this for ages as the shop had only
been open for hours).
Suffering from fatigue,
buyers remorse and surrounded by crowds of people Kristy and I chose
not to argue. Kristy begrudgingly handed back the $800 phone and
went in search of an ATM to get cash out for the rest. HOW BLOODY
RUDE!!!! They tell you to invite a friend but leave out the tiny
detail that this friend would not be allowed to purchase anything –
unless they too paid $60 for membership.
I walked out feeling
utterly deflated. What a waste of a morning and now I have a huge
conundrum. Every urge in my body is telling me that I need to keep
going back to Costco this year to ‘get my money’s worth’ of the
membership. But deep down in the pit of my stomach it’s all just a
ploy to get me hooked. What will I do?!?
I am completely
disgusted with them on so many levels that I think it would be stupid
to go back there. Unless of course I am in the area…. and only buy
things that are significantly cheaper…. and death stare all the
management there for being rude obnoxious pigs.
So here are Bianca’s
top Costco tips:
Don’t pay for
membership
If you have paid
for membership don’t go there to ‘win’ your money back
If you have a baby
take a 2nd person with a pram. No trolleys with the baby
capsules.
Yes, the giant
marshmallows look cool but they are not worth $6 a bag.
I was told they
sold everything but tobacco, alcohol and coffins. I beg to differ.
They hardly had any toys, had only token camping and tool items (you
couldn’t even call it a range) and sold bits and bobs of other
things but nothing really special.
Do not be lured in
there under the false pretences that you will find a 5kg tub of
Nutella (as advertised on the front page of their brochure). This
item no longer exists. You can only buy smaller ones.
Prices may be
cheap but do you really need that many? There is no option to
select a small amount of anything. I bought 3kg of tomatoes for
$3.33 a kilo (what a bargain!!) but didn’t really need 3kg and
ended up having to spend $10 on tomatoes!
I’m quite sure I have
more tips but will have to add them in later. I’m tired and over
talking about Costco. I am erasing them from my mind for the next
few months and heading back to a place where I feel welcome, a place
that is owned by Australian shareholders, a place that employs
Australian managers and a place that doesn’t treat you like they
are doing you a favour just by letting you shop there.
Costco – Just say
NO!!
