23 October 2010

Costco cometh to Canberra

| johnboy
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Australian retail watchers have been speculating that as part of the mammoth Costco chain’s push into the buoyant Australian economy they might open an outlet here in Canberra.

A keen eyed reader has noticed they’re staffing up.

It’s a new model for us, really aimed at families. You have to join their club at $55 a year just to shop there and then the motto is buy in bulk and pack straight into boxes.

Anyone know where they’re going to be setting up?

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finally some retail competition in Canberra. Food / Groceries are so expensive here.

Public service city and retailers, supermarkets and the restaurants here think it gives them a right to – RIP us of blind!

A total lack of competition in a population that is pretty trainsient!

Maybe Costco will finally shake the apple tree so to speak

They are definitely coming to Canberra another ad – http://costco.turborecruit.com.au/job/job_details.cfm?id=540325&from=

As for people commenting about aldi re quality and savings, I as gourmet/snob/providor tart who would never set foot in one, am converted.

Fresh food quality on most occasions surpasses W&C, particularly meats. As for the staples why would you choose to pay 30 % more for the same thing, produced by the same food manufacturers in Australia with different packaging? The only reason I go to my local woolies is to buy gourmet ice-cream at 11 pm. Now I see aldi sell 1litre tubs of g.ice cream for $6!! It easily competes with connosuer.

Only problem with Costco is people will start buying big deep freezers and then wonder why their electricity bills are skyrocketing. Guess that can always blame the govt…

Costco is definitely coming to Canberra, they are advising positions, who knows where it will be, i dare say out airport way.. I can’t wait i think it’s a fantastic idea.. The whole paying a small fee of $60 per year is nothing compared to how much you will save on food in bulk etc.. I’m excited about the diamond rings apparently they are half the cost of what you pay in the shops..Not to mention the cakes that feed a whole party for next to nothing in cost.

They only require a piece of your id for proof to become a member, they don’t ask for a detailed list of personal information, just something with a photo and birth date. I believe it will do well in Canberra.. especially for the bigger families..

Every one has there own opinions and to the ones who don’t want to fork out paying a membership a year, then don’t simple as that. There’s still people who wont go near Aldis because they think everything is imported etc and nothing is fresh.

I’d rather shop at Aldis over Coles/Woolworth any day. Coles would have to have the most unsanitary meat/fruit n veg ever and it has also been proven with testing at how bad it really is. The fruit n Veg lasts a few days because it’s left in the chillers over night and they spray it with water regularly to give it that fresh look.. haha.. anyhow my opinion each to there own.

Bring on Costco i’m all for it… 🙂

abc said :

I heard about a year ago that they’ll be out at the airport near the Supabarn/service station/McDonalds area.. So unless they get rid of Brand Depot, which has been constructed in a way to be a freight terminal, then it’ll be a new building…Costco is the biggest seller of diamond rings in the USA.

McDonalds at the airport? Canberra’s finally grown up 🙂

How do they measure up in regards to gluten-free products?

I love Costco, I can’t see anything on the Australian site about one coming to Canberra though.

When I was in America we tried to get in and they asked us for our membership card, but we said that we were from Australia and just wanted to have a look around and they let us in.

OMG Costco!!!! This will rock my cheap world! I think that i have a retail induced stiffy!

melbournereader10:32 pm 28 Oct 10

Genie–Hmmm….sorry, but Costco does not allow anyone in without a membership card–in the US or anywhere. The whole idea is that you need to be a member to enter the store and shop. You must show your card at the entry. Sure, members are allowed to bring in 2 guests, but the member is to pay for purchases. I don’t know where you went in the US, but the policy of Costco is not to allow just anyone in, and if you are not a member pay 10% extra. Costco has never been run that way. Satisfaction is 100% guaranteed—you can take anything back at any time for a full refund. They also refund the membership fee if you aren’t happy and don’t wish to be a member. The member’s photo is on the card, so it is not something that can be passed around. You have one thing right, though–Costco is awesome!
A store that sells things at 10% markup as a general rule, whether it be peanut butter or diamonds, and sells things for the least amount they can, rather than the most they can like competitors, and can succeed around the world, is a good thing.

Costco is awesome ! I loved shopping at Costco when I was working in America.. You didn’t need to be a member to walk through the front door. You just have to be a member to purchase stuff. I was working a cruise ship and we werent members but paid an extra 10% ontop of whatever we would buy. Dunno if they have that here. I used to love walking out with 1kg or larger bags of munchies to take back to the ship. I remember getting a 1.25kg jar of jelly belly’s for maybe $10. Pack of 10 socks for $2, 1L shampoo and conditioners in brand names for a few bucks… I also bought my laptop from Costco 4 1/2 years ago and sadly it just died on me a week ago.

Can’t wait for it to come to Canberra.

If your worried about the $55 fee, just buy one amoungst friends/family and pass the card around.

georgesgenitals12:56 pm 25 Oct 10

Thanks for that WMC and P1 – looks like plenty of items that I could buy in bulk and store for the short-medium term, then. Even stuff like the beef mince I can easily separate into smaller bags and stick in the deep freeze.

You beauty!

georgesgenitals said :

So are all the Costco products in massive packets (eg the huge tomato sauce), or are there also options of buying a large box of, say, regular sized tins of tomatoes? For stuff that is non-perishable, buying a huge amount to get a BIG discount is a great idea. I’m quite happy to fill one of my spare rooms with boxes of brekky cereal and dunny paper.

Yup, major appeal of this kinda shopping is buying a pack of 24 cans of tinned whatever, at a per unit price less then you would pay elsewhere. So long as you are going to use them before they expire, and can afford the capital outlay, you’ll win.

Woody Mann-Caruso12:01 pm 25 Oct 10

You can by stuff in bulk sizes, regular sizes in bulk, and even regular stuff in regular sizes (especially fresh produce, deli items, frozen stuff).

Here are some examples of prices from August 2010 (Costco price / Coles Online price) I found on some random forum:

Nutri-Grain 940g $6.99 / 805g $8.71
Mainland Tasty Cheese Slices 1.5kg $13.79 / 7.14x210g $36.48
Broccoli 1kg $1.99 / .99c per kg
Lite Milk 3ltr $3.19 / $3.99
Skippy Peanut Butter (smooth) 1.36kg $6.69 / 3.62x375g (Coles Smart Buy brand) $8.25
Multigrain Bread 3x650g $2.99
Mixed Berries (Frozen) 1kg $6.69 / 2x500g $14.58
Beer Batterd Flathead Fillets 1.2kg $15.79 / 3.3x360g $24.78
4&20 Chunky Beef Pies x 8 $7.69 / 2 x 4 packs $14.72
Pauls Lazytown Yoghurt 12pack $4.89/ $7.03
Lean Ground Beef Mince 2.8kg $25.39 / $42.00
Garlic Bread 3 pack 1.2kg $3.99 / 2.6 x 450g 2 pack $8.47

georgesgenitals11:45 am 25 Oct 10

So are all the Costco products in massive packets (eg the huge tomato sauce), or are there also options of buying a large box of, say, regular sized tins of tomatoes? For stuff that is non-perishable, buying a huge amount to get a BIG discount is a great idea. I’m quite happy to fill one of my spare rooms with boxes of brekky cereal and dunny paper.

As an avid consumer, I’m intrigued. I’ll probably take a look if it stocks some stuff that you can’t get elsewhere. I’d assumed it was just Coles/Woolies with bigger packages, but it sounds like that may not be the case.

Costco is appauling and awesome all at the same time. Its consumerism gone mad. Even the trolleys are super-sized.

Just borrow someone’s card if you go there… it worked for us when we were living in the US.

capn_pugwash4:18 pm 24 Oct 10

we’ve been members in melbourne since before it opened – you’re gonna love it! They have a great bakery section, fresh fruit & veg & meat. Also bulk cleaning products, paper towel etc and all kinds of products from the USA that you won’t find anywhere else. The frozen food section is always fun with products like frozen omelettes and frozen caesar salad wraps (so bizarre) but the large bags of frozen berries/prawns/gyozas etc are always popular! Add to that things like cheap calvin klein jeans and big bags of starbucks-roasted costco coffee and there’s something for everyone. Every time we go we find something new and different. Some things are in big packages, but other things are the same size but are 3 or 4 shrink-wrapped together – you still save a fair bit plus it is an entertaining couple of hours! At the beginning they offered a ‘tour’ where you could look into the store from a roped-off area. Now I think they do a free pass to look around but you can’t buy anything without being a member. No-one I know has been unhappy with their membership & all feel the membership fee is worth it. They also have very efficient checkouts unlike some other stores we know….

UrbanAdventure.or said:
I hope they have an open day so we can all go along and see if the store is worth shopping from. I%u2019d hate to have to fork out $55 and then decide it is not worth shopping at.

When I went to a Costco in the US a couple of months ago, they gave me a day pass which let me look around but I could not buy anything. They will probably do the same thing here.

UrbanAdventure.org3:06 pm 24 Oct 10

MrPC said :

Costco is not going to succeed here. Just the idea of having to pay $55 for a membership and hand over all your personal information (without even the promise of airline miles) before you can buy there is a bit much for most Australians to deal with.

Why do they need your personal information? I can’t see how that could possibly be required tgo provide their service of selling you products. That kind of flies in the face of the principles set out in the privacy act:
http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/infosheets/view/6583

“1.1 An organisation must not collect personal information unless the information is necessary for one or more of its functions or activities.”

Why do they need my personal information to sell me a (admittedly very large) packet of chips? Or even to issue me with a membership card? I can pay my $55, get a card issued with a bar code or unique identifyer and that’s it. No need for my address, phone number, date of birth, first child’s name, what side of the bed I sleep on, etc.

I mean I shop at Aldi all the time and all they want to know is that I can pay for the goods. I even had a membership to Campbell’s Cash and carry at one stage and they just needed and ABN and a name.

All that aside, I can see definite advantages to buying a fork lift at 3 am in the morning. Yes indeedy, I’ll have two thanks. Oh, and a 4.8 litre “small” bottle of tomato sauce thanks.

I hope they have an open day so we can all go along and see if the store is worth shopping from. I’d hate to have to fork out $55 and then decide it is not worth shopping at.

I used shops of a similar type (warehouse sized selling bulk packs) while in living in Canada. It had advantages as people had said. I can certainly imagine it not being ideal for all people, but if you can’t figure out how many of an item you need, you will have the same problem at Coles.

Campbells Cash and Carry also run a somewhat similar concept. I wonder if they consider it a threat to their long running stable business model?

MrPC,

I would politely suggest that arescarti42 may be right. I was a member of CostCo when I lived in Japan, and being able to buy stuff in bulk with my housemates allowed me to make back the cost of my membership (which was the Yen equivalent of $A80 over there) on my second visit, about 6 weeks after we first visited.

It does help to buy on behalf of a group of friends, etc, as much of what was sold is in really large amounts – wine often comes in cases, snack foods in the boxes that supermarket staff would usually unpack to stock the shelves, and so on.

Size-wize, the only thing that compares to it in an Australian context is Bunnings. having said that, I’m not sure they’d plonk a full-size store in Canberra unless they felt confident that all of the south-eastern region of the state would drive hours to get here. It’s not impossible if they get good word of mouth.

georgesgenitals12:05 am 24 Oct 10

Surely further competition in this market can only be good for the consumer? I’m a semi-regular at Aldi and reckon it’s great. I’ll at least go and have a look if CostCo set up shop here.

MrPC said :

Costco is not going to succeed here. Just the idea of having to pay $55 for a membership and hand over all your personal information (without even the promise of airline miles) before you can buy there is a bit much for most Australians to deal with.

Costco already have 75,000 Australians paying their $55 membership, which is pretty impressive given that there is currently only one store.

Also, the fight that Woolworths/Coles and other retailers are putting up against new Costco stores suggests that they might be on to something.

Canberra needs more competition, the prices are way too high.

Costco carries few brands, usually just one, so that they can get volume discounts from suppliers. They sell in large packages so that people buy way too much, again to help get them volume discounts from suppliers.

Aldi have the right formula. Give it time.

Costco is not going to succeed here. Just the idea of having to pay $55 for a membership and hand over all your personal information (without even the promise of airline miles) before you can buy there is a bit much for most Australians to deal with.

If they sell catering pack sizes of salsa and corn chips… I’m in…

Chaz said :

so….this is just like Aldi then?

Not quite, apart from the difference in size (think Bunnings Warehouse and you’re getting close), where Aldi tends to focus on generic brands and basic foods, Costco carries a lot of name brands and gourmet restaurant quality food.

Yay. Now I can get 1 pound packets of Doritos. Awesome!!

Amongst the many other jobs, they are also after an “experienced and seasoned meat manager”… I wonder what he’ll be seasoned with?

A word on the use of w00t
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W00t
people in glass house’s etc. oops I mean glass houses.

Golden-Alpine8:04 am 23 Oct 10

rogerthat said :

There is a lot of land clearing going on west of Gladstone Street…?

That land is being cleared but it is for sale. If CostCo was going there it would already be sold one would assume.

I did notice some earthworks happening at Majura Park however, same area abc suggested.

I think I remember seeing that you have to pay to become a member of Costco before you can shop there. Good way to make money. Have someone pay for a membership, then only shop there once.

M0les said :

Woot!

Firstly, how to use an apostrophe: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

That would be great if it was entirely correct; they allow exceptions for not apostrophising plurals. Apostrophes should never be used for plurals.

But back to Costco; I wonder if they’ll be as big a disappointment as Supabarn’s warehouse?

M0les said :

Firstly, how to use an apostrophe: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

Their really funny poster’s…

Woot!

Firstly, how to use an apostrophe: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

In the US, Costco do a lot of really exceptional “loss leader” discounts to get you into the stores. I only know of this as massively discounted ultra-premium French wine, but I’m sure they do it across the board.

When I lived in the states, I was close to a Home Depot and a Sam’s Club (Think: Wal-Mart/Big-W’s big brother). I could buy a gun-safe or a forklift truck, retail at 3am on any day of the week! You’d be surprised at how handy that can be!

No doubt they’ll start-out with jaw-droppingly low prices and then ratchet them up (Like Dan Murphy’s did).

There is a lot of land clearing going on west of Gladstone Street…?

Oh, and speaking of the airport, the new terminal opens on November the 7th.

I heard about a year ago that they’ll be out at the airport near the Supabarn/service station/McDonalds area.. So unless they get rid of Brand Depot, which has been constructed in a way to be a freight terminal, then it’ll be a new building…Costco is the biggest seller of diamond rings in the USA.

Reminds me of when Franklin’s opened up their huge Mega-store in Queanbeyan… that worked out well for them…

WHat about Dickson? Dickson desperately needs more retail space to encourage more car traffic.

Only possible locations would be in Hume, Fyshwick or at Fairbairn given the minimum size of the stores is generally about 6500m2.

They tend to be a tad bigger. Football pitch sized.

so….this is just like Aldi then?

a bigger scale I’m given to understand.

They could take the whole of Brand Depot… no need to fight for parking then

Maybe they’re not building a new ASIO HQ on Constitution Avenue after all…

Woody Mann-Caruso7:18 pm 22 Oct 10

Mmmm…3.79 liter jar of mayonnaise arglgllgll….

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