Something that has been on my to-do list for a while was to join Costco, the American ‘big box’ members-only wholesale retailer where you can buy items cheaply in bulk. Although primarily aimed at trade buyers, individuals belonging to some professions can also join their membership scheme. And, last week, I finally got around to joining after they visited my workplace.
Costco isn’t particularly new to UK, with the first of their warehouses opening here in the mid-1990s. Our local warehouses are in Leeds (near Crown Point), and just off the M60 near Oldham. We went to the Leeds one.
Inside a Costco warehouse
Costco calls its stores ‘warehouses’ and it’s an apt description. It’s a bit like the warehouse bit at the end of Ikea, where what you need is on pallets, and the shelving goes way up beyond customers’ reach to store excess stock. It had a similar feel to the hypermarkets that you get in France such as Auchan and Grand Casino, albeit with much higher shelving.
As well as shelves full of products, services offered in store include a butcher’s, an optician’s, a takeaway food stall, and tire fitting for your car. There’s also usually a fuel station, offering discounted fuel – again, for members only.
Almost everything is available in much larger quantities than you would expect at a standard supermarket. Either because they’re sold as multipacks, or just in bigger packaging. All prices are displayed without VAT added; where VAT applies, the VAT inclusive price is written in smaller lettering. After all, Costco is primarily a wholesaler selling to businesses.
Range
What you probably won’t find is a huge range of products. Costco generally sells one brand for each item, and, as it’s aimed at traders, this tends to be branded items. This means that, even with a bulk discount, items may not always be cheaper than supermarket own brands. That being said, Costco does offer its Kirkwood brand for some items like packaged meat and toilet rolls.
Being an American supermarket, some of the meat on sale is imported from the USA. American meat isn’t commonly sold in UK supermarkets and it’s the first time I’ve knowingly seen it on sale here. Generally, wherever American meat is on offer, there will be British meat alongside. American meat is cheaper, but also tends to come in much larger quantities. I have to say that I thought that the British meat looked to be better quality. I also have my issues with how animals are reared on American farms, as their welfare standards aren’t comparable with Britain and Europe.
Some of the things we bought on our first visit included 40 rolls of toilet paper (actually 10 packs of 4 rolls), huge bottles of Heinz ketchup and 24 can pallets of Cherry Pepsi Max and Orangina.
Costco Membership
You have to be a member to shop at Costco, either online or in store. Anyone can register and pay for an online account, but if you’re an individual, there are eligibility criteria that you need to meet to be able to shop in store. Current prices are here; including VAT, a standard individual membership is around £34 per year and an Executive membership is around £75. Executive members get an additional 2% off their Costco spending, so if you go regularly, it could work out cheaper. I reckon you would need to spend an average of around £170 per month at Costco for it to be worthwhile.
It’s worth noting that the membership cards are not supposed to be transferable, so the named person needs to be there to enter the store. As standard, you get a card for yourself, and a second card for a spouse (so both Christine and I have one each). You can then add one additional person to your account; this costs extra but would be less than a separate individual membership. Besides cardholders, members can bring a maximum of two guests with them on a shopping trip. I suspect that we’ll be offering to bring friends with us in future, so that we can buy in bulk and then split up our purchases later. If you’re a real-life friend of mine and you’re reading this, yes, that means you – contact me and we’ll try to arrange something.
In terms of eligibility, I qualify as I work in the education industry, and Christine works in healthcare so she qualifies too.
Prices
The prices are pretty good. For example, the aforementioned 24 can pallet of Cherry Pepsi Max was £8.38 including VAT (£6.99 without). Tesco sells an equivalent quantity for £10.50 and although I have seen offers as low as £8 from time to time, it’s a good price. They also don’t have ‘multipack can, not to be sold separately’ written across the top.
Vanish stain remover cost us £11.38 (£9.49 excluding VAT) for 1.9 kg; Tesco want £11.25 for a smaller 1.35 kg box. And we got two 880g bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup for £6.99 (VAT exempt), instead of £4.50 from Tesco.
But, like I said, most products are branded. We didn’t buy any herbs or spices because we could get them much cheaper at one of our local Asian supermarkets, and I can get own-brand cereal much cheaper at Lidl. Also, there were some things that we didn’t buy because of the quantities. For example, you can’t just buy one tin of kidney beans, you have to buy at least 24. Which is great if you’re regularly cooking chilli con carne, but otherwise is a lot of food to have to store. We’re lucky that we have a cellar and can put bulky items there until needed, but if you don’t have lots of storage, this could be a problem.
So, should you consider a Costco membership? If you can shop often enough to make the membership cost worth it, sure. Individual membership works out at around £3 per month and we saved more than that in one visit, although you also need to factor in travel costs.
