Costco vs. Sam’s Club
Comparing Sam’s Club to Costco is like comparing Wal-Mart to Target. Sam’s club is located in areas where customers HAVE to budget shop and Costco tends to be located in wealthier suburbs, where customers have the luxury of choosing to budget shop, offers less selection and better quality, while the other offers more selection and a little less quality. One is the biggest seller of fine wines and the other is part of the company that is the biggest seller of well, everything.
From a budget fashion perspective, Costco is obviously the better store offering major discounts on big name brands like Calvin jeans for $22.99 and a great no questions asked return policy. Even its own house brand Kirkland, has clothing like men’s dress shirts that are comparable in quality to major department store brands like Marshall’s Fields and Nordstrom, with one exception— the Costco brand shirts cost 50% less. However, what attracts budget shoppers like myself to the store is that Costco caps their markups at 14% over the price they paid for an item—significantly less than department stores (up to 50%) and yep, even less than Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart. Plus, employees at Costo make a ton more money than Sam’s Club associates—but as one person pointed out Costco employees often make more money because they live and work in wealthy suburbs where it costs more money to live.
Now, don’t go and cut up your Sam’s club card. Sam’s club has more locations and I think better deals on bulk items like toilet paper, bottle water, where brand name really doesn’t matter. Plus, Sam’s Club shares exclusive deals, like a limited edition Garth Brooks cd box set, with it’s sister store, Wal-Mart and the membership is about $15 cheaper than Costco.
Despite their great deals and bulk groceries (do you really need a 7 pound chocolate cake), I still think something is missing from these stores. Fashionistas will not want to head to the local Sam’s club en mass. With the exception of Calvin Klein jeans and nice dress shirts, the rest of the clothing selection leaves much to be desired. Which brings me to a major gripe about the clothing selection. I would estimate over 75% of the women I’ve seen shopping at my local Costco would be considered plus size, yet a majority of the clothing are in size 16/XL or below.
There are little to no signage on the aisles, so you often spend 30 minutes looking for peanut butter. Once you find the peanut butter, there’s a limited selection in terms of brands (buyers for the warehouse buy whatever brand they can get the cheapest for the week). Once you decide on a brand, then you have to wait 30 minutes in a check out line. However, I can see the appeal of the store, especially for families, with large grocery needs. For them, I say score a card, it’s worth it.
| Posted by The Budget Fashionista
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Member Comments
Until 6 years ago, I didn’t have the choice of warehouses to shop from. A native Texan, I grew up with Sams. Amazing how competition can motivate a company to change. Before Costco arrived in Texas, I found all Sams Wholesale clubs that I shopped at to be dirty, and the customer service lacking. And this is the first year I decided not to renew my Sams membership. I find that overall, the price difference between the memberships means little to me when I look at the big picture. “Sometimes, you get what you pay for.”
I worked at Costco for over 4 years and I decided to finally quit because the management was lacking common sense and promoted people who had looks not brains. I applied for a job at Sams Club and I am glad I did. I have been working for the Club for over a year now and I haven’t been happier. My co-workers are so much more plesent. It is a team enviroment at Sams and I am glad to say I work for Sams.
actually where I live, most of the women who shop costcoare below size 10, so it kind of works for them to have sizes to choose from. My family enjoys the fact that organic food is so inexpensive, and that we get insanely good prices on calvin klein, kenneth cole both reaction and unlisted, and miss sixty. My friend got dior sunglasses for the ungodly price of 90 dollars as compared to i dunno 300 dollars. That more than paid for her family’s membership. With the coupons that come in the mail, luxury products are even more affordable. Contact lenses are inexpensive. I got a pair of glasses a couple years ago that had all the bells and whstles, including scratch resistant lenses, transitions and whole bunch of hoopla and they were givenchy. All told 400… Compared to the place we usually shop, they sold just the glasses - forget the lenses and transitions and scratch resistance for 500 bucks. We got a much better deal. I also am proud to know that I support a corporation that actually seems to give about its employees in terms of wage. Kelly, it could also be that specific costco.
We get great deals on everything there, and I couldn’t ask for more.
I have a Costco membership,and although we are a family of 6, I usually don’t buy many groceries there because we can’t posibly eat them before they expire.So I found that I waste more than I save.I used to have my freezer full of stuff. But in the end I save more money budget shopping at my local Food Mart. I hate wasting food. I feel guilty.
And clothe shopping there, forget it! They had Calvin Klein shirts that were extremely thin and plain for $20. You basically are paying for the name. Most of their clothes are just ugly. IMO.
Here in CA Sam’s are few and far between, but Costco is worth the membership for the savings on gasoline alone if the one near you happens to have a gas station!
I grew up on Costco. I remember when I was 6yrs. old, thats all my aunt and uncle would ever shop at for bulk items because coming from a tongan family (Polynesian Islands) we have a very large family so a warehouse store like Costco fit our needs. Plus, we never had to worry about breaking our budget and whatnot we always have enough food to go around. My husband now works at Costco in Torrance, CA and he enjoys being part of the Costco Family! We love it, the Management Team has great hospitality and everyone gets along really well.
Kelly, I’m sorry to hear what happened to you at Costco. But it could be your Costco that you worked at. So please dont dislike Costco for that reason, maybe you could’ve tried a different Costco, I dont know. But best wishes to you!