Is Costco in the edge remote part of your neighborhood?

In Redding, Costco used to be in a high traffic area. They recently moved to a more remote (but still easily accessible by freeway) location. Their reasoning was amazing.
The new location is larger by 2, but the parking lot is immense. Well, that’s nice, but that’s not the point.
The point was that now Costco owned lots of property around their store. Now they can lease spots to restaurants, and they will profit from it.

At our house a trip to Costco is an EVENT! My daughter has a membership, and sometimes we go with her. It takes almost an hour to get there. So I feel your pain.

Our nearest location is close by, and not at all remote: near the intersection of two major freeways and about 10 minutes from downtown. It’s also on a bus route.

If you figure in that transportation cost, your membership is probably not saving you anything. Do you have a neighbor who shops there and might take you along for less than you pay a taxi?

@Jeruba No. I can order from Costco with Instacart delivery. Also I can order in person or online from Wholesale club for $30 taxi both ways.

I don’t have a Costco near my primary residence, but I’ve lived many places and sometimes the Costco is at a very central shopping center, so no, it’s not always the edge of town. These places are very populated suburbs, not big metropolitan cities.

The Costco closest to me is about a fifteen minute ride. It’s in a town on a road that has a lot of stores, restaurants and businesses – everything from Kohls to CVS to craft stores, furniture stores, supermarkets, Panera, Five Guys, McD’s, Wendy’s, lots of gas stations. Costco has a huge parking lot so it really is its own destination.

@RedDeerGuy1 You can order a lot online from Costco.com with free or minimum shipping. Sometimes there are things on their site that are on clearance, cheaper than you’ll find in the warehouse. I sometimes go on there just to see what I see. Especially at the end of the season, you’ll find lots on clearance, like beach towels and summer clothes in August, Christmas and holiday stuff at the end of December, etc.

We don’t have Costco in my state.

Life is about choices. Costco chooses where to build based on many factors. You also can choose to not go there if you are paying more in a ride than you save.

There are four Costcos within a 15–20 mile radius – the northern and eastern suburbs of Atlanta.

All of them are in high-traffic, shopping areas. NOT the boonies; just big plots of land within a mile or two of a big-box store center or a mall or other commerce.

Come to think of it, I need to go there today.

Our Costco is right in the middle of town (pop. 400,000). I’ve never been to a Costco mainly because the last I heard you have to be a member to shop there. Forget that! And I wouldn’t pay $50 to go anywhere in town whether I had a car or not. I pay $98/year to have Walmart deliver my groceries and anything else to me. No limit on how many times, no limit on how much I spend.

My nearby Costco is located within Arlington, VA, an urban and heavily-populated jurisdiction. The store is across the street from a large shopping mall and a Ritz-Carlton hotel. I’ve always thought that the placement is odd, given the value of real estate, but I guess it works.

@Love_my_doggie I’ll bet the Costco predates the Ritz Carlton.

@smudges I’ve heard people say they’ll be damned if they’re going to pay someone for the privilege of spending their money there, but with Costco, there are two memberships, the regualr and the Executive. The regular is 60 a year and the Exec is 120. With the Exec, you get money back. Last year I got over 700 back. If you don’t spend enough to get back enough to cover your 120, they give you the difference so you’re getting it back anyway. I also have the Costco Visa which is a whole extra rebate. Last year I got over 700 from their Visa. Their Visa is no annual fee and low interest.

Our Costco isn’t far. It’s a good company that treats its employees well, and I save more than I spend on the membership, I even bought a car through them, once!

It’s important to me that they are a good employer, the practices of some of the other big stores are deplorable.

@chyna

“We don’t have Costco in my state.”

How do you know that?

I don’t doubt what you said, because when I Google “Costco West Virginia” all I get is VA, but I was wondering if you had some other source for this.

No, I don’t. But I have never seen one. And I live near the biggest city in WV.

I don’t see any in WV on the Costco warehouse locator:

https://www.costco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/warehouse-locations?actionType=add&langId=-1&storeId=10301&catalogId=10701

@jca2 That’s really good to know! I’ll check out those memberships. Two things I know of that are good at Costco is the size of products you can buy, and they also have some things that are only Costco products. I have a beading friend who’s always bringing things to meetings and bead-alongs that I’ve never heard of. Maybe they’re not exclusive to Costco, but I’ve not seen them before. Thank you!

I just joined BJ’s. It’s similar to Costco, but I think Costco is better. I’ve never joined a wholesale club like that before, because everything is such huge sizes and portions, but it was $20 for the year and the gas is about 30¢ cheaper per gallon! My husband drives right by the BJ’s on his way to work. If it wasn’t on the way I doubt I would have joined. I think Costco has gas too, I don’t know if it’s much cheaper like BJ’s.

Also, when I joined they gave me a bunch of coupons that I probably could have saved $20, but I haven’t bern able to shop and they will probably expire. There’s some sort of credit card also that I didn’t get. None in WV by the way; I checked it.