Walmart, Target, Macy's, even Kohl's are all growing their online and app presence to supplement their brick and mortar operations to try and compete with Amazon. Obviously not great, but they're investing in it. How come you never hear about Costco doing that, even though their brand has a great reputation and their website is decent? Is it because they're already a good company they don't have to focus on tech as much? #costco
If it ain’t broke dont fix it
They do, but compared to the 👑, Albertsons, everything pales.
Because a warehouse is cheap to operate, probably cheaper then the website lol And they rearrange the products often so you have to walk around more and end up buying more shit
Costco's model is completely different from the rest. They make like no money being a wholesaler; their entire profit model is memberships. Why do they need to put in the work for making the experience better when they are trying to minimize costs and pass all of it on to the customer as a value proposition? I think they did the math and figured out their customers would rather have cheaper products than fancier websites.
That makes sense, but their customer experience is pretty great, plus they offer all sorts of goods they don't have to, like auto insurance and vacation packages. I guess those are just to entice customers to stay + sign up for memberships + buy stuff from them, but they don't need the sort of features that Walmart Labs/Global Tech is building (like the Amazon-esque Walmart Marketplace).
You hit the nail on the head. Everything is done to drive membership retention and new signups. Feature adds are not something people come to Costco for so they won't index on stuff that an actual retailer does.
They moved to online Costco cards, so they are digitizing (I went to a store and got some free tumblers). I will say buying stuff on Costco online is more expensive than at warehouse. Ecommerce and shipping is waaaaaay more expensive now and no one’s really solved perishable item shipping profitable. (See amazons fresh dying. WebVan, Walmart+, target etc etc )
Wonder how the milkman model worked back in the good ol' days
I think the level of consumption justified it. My guess is everyone in the neighborhood got it versus it being selective to none now.
Instacart
The smart move would be for the mortar stores to all buy instacart and use it as the basis of a low margin software platform co-op. Razor margins and a multi-tenant front.
Online sales destroyed treasury hunt aspects of Costco. I hope Costco just do bare minimum for online. Invest the money on the employees and physical warehouses.
Bring back the salads and the Polish sausages at the food court
And combo pizza! 😢
Costco is the best possible example I can think of of a pure strategy around achieving market dominance via being the low cost provider based on economies of scale. Any dollar they invest into tech/e-commerce/whatever is decretive to the competitive advantage they have built. They don’t need to do this, and doing so would potentially invite competition.
Costco is a great company, a true market leader who follows its own strategy and doesn't blindly follow their competitors . On top of that they treat their employees extremely well. Lots of respect for them.
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