Costco has earned it's way onto the list of places that I won't go to even if I will save a ton of money. Now that list includes Costco and Wal-mart. Wal-mart I think everyone gets. You sacrifice customer service and sanity to save a bunch of money. But at Costco, they charge you money to shop there. This should mean that you don't have to sacrifice on service, and when you shop there, it should not make you want to kill people. Since I went there for 10 minutes yesterday and got so mad I had to leave, I'll share this note to the world. Costco is awful, and here are 10 reason why.
Top 10 reasons why Costco Sucks:
10. The parking lot at the one I go to is crooked. So you have to weave in and out of cars to go from your car to the door. Stoopid!
9. The greeter is generally an a-hole who doesn't do anything other than pretend to look for membership cards
8. They are always out of carts
7. The produce is AWFUL!!!... I saved a ton of money on green peppers, sure, but who cares if you open the bag up and they are all beat up. What is it you are doing to these freaking things?
6. The selection is terrible… Give me a break, does every person that shops at Costco all wear the same type of deodorant, or is it just me?
5. Where are the walnuts!?
4. Do you like zombies? Cause if you do, I know where to find some. They are slowly pushing a cart down the middle of every isle at every Costco on earth. Don't worry, though, these zombies won't eat you. All they will do is impeed you from being able to push your cart by, forcing you to stare at the 30 pound bag of jalepeno poppers for what seems like hours, wishing you had done a better job on last years resolutions, so this years resolutions wouldn't result in your inability to devour jalepeno poppers. CRAP!
3. Again, I'm paying you to shop here?... Why? The prices aren't that good (do the math on that 37 pack of 9 ounce Cokes - I promise you'll be kicking yourself for a year) and customer service is simply non-existant.
2. Costco also sucks relatively speaking, because grocery stores have started sucking a lot less. The prices are really coming down. I highly recommend you check out a Safeway if you haven't been in a while. The quality is top notch on everything and the prices are fairly decent. Also, if you are near an employee, instead of acting like you are either invisible or a burden to their existance, they'll say something pleasant like "can I help you find anything?" or "have a nice day". It's refreshing.
1. The lines at check-out are absolutely dehumanizing. I feel like I must be in line to pay for something absolutely awesome like Space Mountain, or to see a 2-headed bearded lady. But no, I'm in line to pay for my effing groceries. Holy crap I feel dumb.
Stay Away!
8 comments:
You complain a lot... From the reasons listed, it sounds more like you hate people than costco.
Thanks for the comment, though I am a bit skeptical of your motives. This blog is very dead, so I think the only way you could find me is if you are my friend or you work for Costco. Either way, that leaves you a bit biased.
Given the deadness of the blog, I only post now when I need to vent. My costco experience was so bad, that I felt the need to post. If you read older posts, there's much less complaining.
Anyways, I don't hate people or Costco, but I do hate companies that think I won't demand a good customer experience. Costco's experience is horrible, as you can plainly tell, which is why I'm so hostile. I'm sick of Americans thinking we don't deserve better. Quit being so accepting of the status quo. And quit blaming whiney bloggers. I wouldn't be complaining and so full of hate, if you'd stop giving bad companies your money!
They do suck... how dare they charge 50 dollars a year to shop there! Their prices are no better than anyone else's, too.
Also they don't give any one day passes for people to even DECIDE if they want to buy the scam membership. Can't stand them.
Since it seems to matter, in the interest of full disclosure, I found this posting via a search on the phrase "Costco sucks" while doing research to counteract some Costco fanboy-ism on a message board.
As to the original post, I think you are going shopping at the wrong Costco and/or the wrong time of day. It's kind of like the people who go shopping at Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon and wonder why they have such a poor experience.
Try shopping right after opening, or within an hour of closing on a weekday. Or go to another club location. I find that certain stores in certain areas attract a certain kind of clientèle. If I don't like that type of clientèle, then I'm probably more likely to have a more miserable experience right from the the outset. That goes not just for Costco, but any retail establishment.
It's the same reason I don't go to Safeway or any other supermarket in the late afternoon/early evening.
My complaint about Costco is customer “service.” I just got back from returning a jar of candy that I discovered (when I got home) had been tampered with. I waited in line about ten minutes and just as I stepped up to the counter a man came along and the Costco employee immediately started waiting on him. When I protested that I had been there first, she replied that she couldn’t help me because she was waiting on him now. Okay, I waited a bit more (not happily). She finished her business with him, but then proceeded to have a chatty social conversation with him. Again I spoke up (by now I’d been waiting nearly 20 minutes). She ignored me. I asked to seen the manager. Her name is Marilyn and she works at the membership/returns desk at the store in Melrose Park, Illinois. I’m pretty pissed at the way I was treated.
My complaint about Costco is customer “service.” I just got back from returning a jar of candy that I discovered (when I got home) had been tampered with. I waited in line about ten minutes and just as I stepped up to the counter a man came along and the Costco employee immediately started waiting on him. When I protested that I had been there first, she replied that she couldn’t help me because she was waiting on him now. Okay, I waited a bit more (not happily). She finished her business with him, but then proceeded to have a chatty social conversation with him. Again I spoke up (by now I’d been waiting nearly 20 minutes). She ignored me. I asked to seen the manager. Her name is Marilyn and she works at the membership/returns desk at the store in Melrose Park, Illinois. I’m pretty pissed at the way I was treated.
Since you appear to understand warehouse retailing I would personally love to hear what you would suggest they do? I am aware this is a rather old but would still be interested to hear about how you think they can improve at least half of these "problems" they have. I do not work or Costco, I am just a business student in second year. I find it hard to sympathize for you when you give no consideration for why these are problems and how they could be solved in your opinion, it feels like half a blog post and would love to hear the rest of it.
Yes, good point. I don't have a solution for all these problems. In fact, this business model may just be one I'll never be satisfied with. There's a big sacrifice to be made in terms of Customer Experience when you go to Costco, which maybe I'd be fine with if the prices were much better. But really they just aren't that good.
I guess mostly I'd ask that they ensure they are staffed appropriately (to keep lines manageable) - I'd speculate this would have a decent return as well, as it would increase revenues from people who avoid Costco for this reason.
Also, a lot of the club thing just seems like marketing BS. The greeter at the door is like a mall cop. They don't really have a job, it's just for show... to make people think they are getting something for their investment in a membership - I've yet to see value there.
Of course, for small businesses, this place is probably wonderful. So maybe Costco really doesn't care for me to be a customer, and are trying to weed me out. If so, fair enough. Mission Accomplished banner.... but if they want typical personal consumers, they need to do better.
Post a Comment