A couple of years ago I had a strange coincidence regarding a plasma screen TV. My company is a reseller, as such we of course purchase wholesale direct from distributors. I got an e-mail from one of my distributors with a price list containing this certain TV, don't remember the make and model though. for $1100. Later that evening I had to go to Costco where I saw this same plasma screen fro $380 more. This distrib, PCW, generally is not known for great prices in regards to items such as plasma screen TVs. As I looked around, I saw everything from hard drives to mice that could be had for cheaper. And I do not mean just wholesale, but even retail. FYI, just for those that might not be familiar with how wholesale distribution works, it is all based upon extreme mass volume. With that said, items really are not marked down that much. In fact most of the time when I need to purchase a switch I go through a separate broker who has excess quantity to get rid of rather than a distrib. Now with that under consideration I just do not see how Costco could sell themselves as such a great savings when in fact they were marking up way too much. Maybe I am wrong, but I always thought the point to Costco and Sams was wholesale prices, where by they making their money off of charging you to just shop there. Now mind you I am not a Costco fan at all, it was my mother who put my wife on her account because at the time my wife believed that by buying enough meat to supply the whole British army, we would save money. I think most stores do what you said, they drop prices below retail just to get you in the door. I have no doubt that Microcenter uses this as a strategy against Best Buy and CompUSA, who do not have the best prices anyways. Thank god for Pricegrabber and other search engines, it is amazing how much you can save by NOT going to places like Best Buy, CompUSA, etc.. Sean Waite -----Original Message----- From: Mike Miller <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> To: TCLUG List <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:40:46 -0600 (CST) Subject: [tclug-list] [OT] Costco prices On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Sean Waite wrote: > Just last weekend I had to stop in at Costco to pick something up for > someone else. Personally I find Costco to be a complete rip-off. While I > was there I saw 50-pack of DVD+Rs for around $40-50. This is somewhat OT, thus the new thread. I just want to say that Costco gives great prices on some things. When I got married a couple of years ago I researched booze prices and bought a bunch of bottles for the wedding. Costco beat everyone else in town, usually by a fairly substantial margin. On most days their gasoline is cheaper than anywhere else I know of (often by about $0.10/gal), but I'm not sure that's consistent. One of the ways that Costco and Sam's club make their money is by selling some items at ordinary prices -- sometimes even higher than those at the grocery store. The other more obvious approach is to buy massive amounts of smaller numbers of items. If you don't have a stand-alone freezer or plenty of storage room, it might not be so great to shop at Costco. There is no doubt in my mind that I save plenty at Costco by buying the right things in large quantities. I just ignore most of the stuff in Costco -- it isn't a good place for impulse purchases of big-ticket items. Apparently, it isn't a good place to buy DVD+R media. Mike _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tclug-list at mn-linux.org http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list [http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20070221/8d2241bb/attachment.htm