The Costco Experience 2011, Revised and Updated Edition

Chapter 1: Preparing for the Costco Experience


Shopping at Costco is a unique undertaking. That realization sinks in with an appreciation of the very size of the typical Costco store. Imagine the totality of a professional football field, triple it, and you’ve approached the vastness of a nearby Costco. That’s right. A football field is 45,000 square feet in size; huge though it may be, it pales when compared to the vastness of the typical Costco warehouse store—generally around 150,000 square feet. Now you have a hint of what you’re in for when shopping at this behemoth bizarre. Because of the immensity of size, you have to approach shopping at Costco differently than almost anywhere else.
Don’t get me wrong. Conquering Costco is a shopper’s ecstasy to the point of approaching lightheadedness; no other emporium offers so many options in a single venue; at the same time, no other chain offers the predictability of the Costco experience either in format or service. Other than local additions such as Kona coffee in Hawaii, caskets (yes, caskets!) in Palm Springs, or cold winter items in the northeast, virtually all Costco stores are organized in similar, predictable patterns. But successfully negotiating your way through this massive center of commerce is hardly a typical shopping trip. Far from a simple excursion to a nearby supermarket or neighborhood convenience store, the Costco experience requires customers to draw upon extraordinary resources.
The Costco experience is an exercise in individual empowerment. When executed carefully, shopping at Costco succeeds because of careful planning, time management, and extraordinary customer discipline. When carried out poorly, the shopper can walk away in disgust, anger and complete exhaustion. The idea, of course, is to be in charge of your Costco adventure, rather than have it be in charge of you.
The need to treat Costco with uncharacteristic respect becomes evident with your first efforts to work your way through the building entrance. Appearing more like a three-ring upscale flea market than a grocery store or mall outlet, Costco imposes a three dimensional framework on an otherwise two dimensional shopping exercise. It’s easy to become distracted by the dozens of pianos or big screen televisions that almost leap at you upon entry. Conquering the Costco challenge can catapult you to new heights or drive you to severe fatigue, and often does a bit of both simultaneously. Simply put, whatever your previous shopping encounters, be they the purchase of a few grocery supplies or acquisition of a new automobile, multiply them by many times and you have the basic foundation for shopping at Costco.
I know what you’re thinking—“This guy’s nuts. He’s turned a routine trip to the supermarket into a World War III battle plan. After all, what can be so exotic or unusual about wandering through an unglamorous warehouse store? Isn’t Costco just a form of grocery shopping on a large scale? He either has too much time on his hands, an over-active imagination, or both. Most of all, he needs help, and fast!”
This is a reasonable assessment by the innocent individual who has not yet meandered among the endless aisles, coped with overloaded shopping carts, or taken in the ever-reliable bakery wafts at Costco. But make no mistake--only the uninitiated Costco shopper would reach such a hasty conclusion, and understandably so.
Anyone who has successfully maneuvered his or her way through the Costco adventure even once is likely to acknowledge this account as a humbling validation of their shopping experiences, rather than vilification of a hyperbolic author. Whether you have had a previously unfulfilling sojourn to Costco or simply been too intimidated to ever shop there in the first place, reading this book may be the first step to changing your life and the way you shop from this day forward. In fact, applying the suggestions offered in the pages that follow may change your life in ways well beyond the Costco experience for in some respects, its lessons may well relate to numerous other challenges in your daily routines. At the risk of overplaying the dramatic, I ask you to consider this fundamental proposition: understanding how to manage Costco is a major step getting more control over your life!