Sam's Club vs. Costco?

I know I've seen lots of posts on Costco and we seem to like it, but what about Sam's??

Costco dropped one of my biggest savings products, and I just don't know if it's worth renewing - and I've only got 2 months yet.

I used to belong to Sam's - really only changed to Costco because the traffic pattern to them is so much more ideal. It's been about 3 years since I belonged to Sam's Club.

Things I miss from Sam's (if it's still this way):

Snow crab legs frozen cheap

I recall some GOOD bacon (never liked what I tried at Costco)

Wine - I liked Sam's selection better than Costco's. They were better about chasing bargains around the world.

Clothing - you really could get some NICE stuff CHEAP now and then. Frankly Costco doesn't seem as nice and it's more expensive.

A lot of other key products are probably the same:

Loins of strip steak (hadn't noticed a change in quality between Sam's and Costco).
Good price on OJ.
I hope Sam's has deals on Prilosec and Breathe Right like Costco...

OK, I know lately I've been getting some nice cheese from Costco that I never got from Sam's before, but I don't eat anywhere enough cheese to justify my membership.

Also, I find that Costco's meat prices are often HIGHER than Caputo's, and Caputo's is way more convenient for me than Costco.

Anybody want to toot a horn for Sam's Club. Or vice versa? Do they still have the frozen snow crab legs? (Yeah, they were a cheaper dinner than pizza and we really miss it).

Nancy

I thought that this subject was discussed ad nauseum in the past but I haven't been able to pull up a link to prior threads. It is usually a godd subject to avoid as it becomes a political discussion.

I belong to Sam's Club as we provide a membership to all of our employees. A couple of our employees have requested that we change to Costco BUT it is far less convenient and our employees prefer Sam's.

If you go to the front membership desk, you can get a one-day guest pass and see if they meet your needs.

For my household of two, we see really NO benefit of belonging to either Sam's or Costco except gasoline and the marked-down clothing specuals.

In fact, BJs was the only club where we really bought anything as they had smaller sizes AND a great "cut to order" deli which was about half the price of the grocery chains.

Nancy,

If it not too personal, what did Costco drop that you liked?

jlawrence,

What is BJ?

Regards,

I'm still a member of Sam's Club - mostly because it's nearby here in Evanston. But not that I'm single again, it makes it a little tougher to go ... it's a lot more practical to split purchases of massive quantities of food and other supplies between two households.

That said, the meats there seem to me to be particularly good for the price ... especially ribs, lesser cuuts of beef, and frozen salmon filets.

http://www.bjs.com/

From their website:

BJ’s Wholesale Club first introduced the warehouse club concept to the northeastern United States in 1984. Since then, the chain has expanded its operations to serve East Coast communities stretching from Maine to Florida, as well as west into Ohio. Today, BJ’s operates more than 160 Clubs in 16 states located in the eastern U.S.

BJ’s is dedicated to providing our Members with prices significantly lower than those found in supermarkets, supercenters, department stores, drug stores and specialty retail stores. To that end, we offer low BJ’s Member PricingSM on a huge selection of top-brand apparel and accessories, small appliances, consumer electronics, fine jewelry, groceries and other quality merchandise.

BJ’s had a warehouse in Schaumburg until about 2002.

The product Costco dropped was Liquid Neutrogena - supposed a facial cleaning soap (in liquid pump form).

My parents and us have been using it for years for hand-washing in the bathroom. Even made my Dad quit Lava - it works as well and isn't so harsh.

That soap is kinda pricey, and Costco was giving me 1/3 the retail price. I know Sam's didn't cover it in the past, have no idea about now.

Nancy

While I beling to either, I piggy back to one or the other about every two weeks. For the staple - PT, TP, dish soap, laundry soap - Costco is more expensive - betweek 50 cents and $2/item more. And they don't carry Downy or individual Goldfish cracker packages (so annoying).

I agree, better deals on clothes are available at Sam's ($7 t shirts!), but both carry Liz Claiborne and Jones New York.

Meat: I find Costco's beef to be a better quality, but the pork is about the same or a little better at Sam's, as are the chickens.

Where Costco excels is the house Kirkland brand items: Coffee, Olive Oil (the glass bottle), diapers, bottled water. And their organic produce. The quality is very good, and the prices can't be beat.

I have a 2-unit building with family downstairs, so the larger stuff - we split (cheese, tomatoes, french bread) So the value is there for us. With the Executive membership we get back, I think 2% on all purchases or get the difference back, buying for 2 households, we'll do that easily.


There are bigger benefits to both. Costco does treat its employees better than Sam's, it's nice to support an oragnization that does that. For now, I'll keep piggybacking, but will probably pony up for my own Costco membership eventually.

I have been a member of CostCo for about 3 years now, and I go to the one in Lincoln Park.
Just a few comments based on the previous posts:
CostCo does carry Downy.
Also the Farmland bacon CostCo carries was voted best by America's Test Kitchen.
We are only a 2 person household, but I find the membership to CostCo to be a necessity. We entertain a decent amount and I save my membership fee several times over just on the meats, etc I buy for parties. Yes there are times you may be able to find a better deal elsewhere but the consistency of pricing is what makes CostCo great.
I think teh last time I went to a grocery store was MONTHS ago. We pretty much get by at CostCo, Stanley's and Farmer's Markets.
Jamie

I belong to both. Costco has a wider selection of books and better meat. Sam's is much cheaper for the office supplies I need -- particularly printer ink. (My ink costs more at Costco than at Office Depot!) Salad fixings are about the same at both places, so I can buy those at whichever place I happen to be passing. But I'd say, on the whole, while Costco may have more stuff, if Sam's has an item that Costco also carries, it will be cheaper at Sam's.

And, in a non-financial vein, the people just seem nicer at Sam's.

We are former Sam's Club members who joined Costo a number of years ago for a variety of reasons. We have never looked back. Even though Costco was inconveniently located for us and there was a Sam's club less than five miles away, I felt it was worth having the Costco membership. There is a new Costco currently under construction in Orland Park, which will be the closest to my home and I can't wait. In our opinion, the quality of the products offered is much better at Costco, and as was mentioned in a previous post, the quality (and cost!) of the Kirkland brand products just can't be beat.

I recently contacted the company because I was unhappy that my beloved Kirkland body wash was discontinued. I got a personal response from someone explaining that they were reformulating the product, and then was asked to pinpoint exactly what it was I liked about the old formula. I responded quite specifically and have remained in contact with the assistant buyer, who has promised to let me know when the new product will be rolling out. Incidentally, he even checked his warehouse inventory to see if there were any stray cases around I could get my hands on!

Now, THAT's customer service!

Suzy

I split both a regular Sam's membership and an executive Costco membership with my parents - my dad is the authorized "spouse" on both of them, and both clubs were fine with that. Sam's is closer to me, Costco is closer to them.

Sam's has a few things that I like/need that Costco doesn't. I like their house brand garbage bags, they carry Mucinex in volume which I need 3-4x/year, Planters cashew pieces in bulk, Usinger Polish Sausage. It's enough of a savings to justify the Sam's account, and the fact that it's much closer to my home keeps the inertia going.

As far as food items (to keep on theme for LTH), my parents really like the meat from Costco, especially the 7# packages of chicken pieces in pouches. Both my mom and I do "cooking days" and freeze a lot, so it makes sense.

BJ's had a location on NW hwy in Rolling Meadows.It now houses Harvest Bible Chapel.

grant wrote:BJ's had a location on NW hwy in Rolling Meadows.It now houses Harvest Bible Chapel.

And another on Mannheim Road in or near Franklin Park

Nancy, I have memberships at both stores and find myself going to Sam's Club far more often than Costco. One thing to consider...it seems that the Sam's Club stores have their products better "matched" to their neighborhoods than does Costco, so it's important to pick the right store in which to shop.

I go to the Oak Brook and Naperville Costcos, and the Woodridge and Naperville Sam's Clubs. For me, the produce and butchered meats are clearly better at Sam's Club, the wine and cheese selections are clearly better at Costco, and everything else is pretty much equal...

Mark

of course there's the big argument that republicans shop at sam's and costco is more democrats... but we didn't want a political argument did we?

I belong to both Costco & Sam's... (I used to be an executive member @ costco.. this year that didn't make sense so I decided to get the regular and w/ that savings we bought the costco membership)

Outside of products...there are many subtle differences between Sam's and Costco. I personally much prefer Costco but Sam's is closer. The lighting in Costco is brighter and it just feels cleaner. Sam's is dimly lit. Costco employees are very well paid, much more than Sam's employees. well paid employees==helpful employees. and its nice to support organizations that don't try to use their size to belittle everyone in their chain (as wal-mart/sam's is well known for doing).

sam's web site sucks (if you're looking at certain products, they don't even list model numbers). costco's is great.

costco has a lot of fringe benefits too.. sam's tends to do the same, but if you look at history most of the more innovative things were started at costco first then copied by sam's (even the $1.50 hotdog+drink was copied...). they have a lot of services that I'm not sure if sam's has copied yet... i've gotten great deals on various things (saved a ton on a car loan...)..

...now to the products. its somewhat hard to compare the two apples to apples, unless the stores are very close geographically... both sam's and costco's carry different products at different stores (or package them in different sizes even). I find that Sam's usually has a wider selection of the same products. For instance, they might have 4 different types of dishwashing detergent whereas Costco might have one major national brand and then their own usually very good Kirkland Signature brand. I prefer the Kirkland Signature house brand over Sam's house brand. Sometimes Kirkland Signature branded stuff is better than the major national branded stuff, and its sometimes priced accordingly (some of the KS stuff is priced higher than the major brand stuff).

I prefer Costco meats, though a lot of the pre-packaged stuff is identical.

Costco seems to carry more "luxury" items, and stuff I might not have thought about buying unless I had seen it and thought it was a good deal. Also, they put out a Passport savings coupon book once or twice a year, and always have coupons of some sort. i've gotten very very good deals w/ these coupons (buy one get one free pork loins, detergent, etc.. $10 off this, $5 off that... etc). I haven't seen any coupons from Sam's.

Someone said they prefer the Sam's wine selection... costco has more higher end stuff, but they have a decent selection of average/inexpensive wines too. I don't feel strongly one way or the other, but i tend to buy more wine when i'm @ costco than i do at sam's... so maybe i prefer costco. also, costco is the #1 seller of wine in the country.. so that must say something too. (or maybe that relates to the fact that sam's are typically in more rural places where they might not be into wine as much). from the bottles they do have in common (the popular champagnes, etc), costco's prices are lower than sam's...
though lately i've been finding better deals at real wine stores than i have at costco/sams.

Nancy Sexton wrote:I know I've seen lots of posts on Costco and we seem to like it, but what about Sam's??

Nancy,

We live roughly equidistant from Sam's Club and Costco. When Sam's first opened the Evanston store we joined, this was years before Costco came to Chicago. For whatever reason, I hardly ever went and, when I did, never seemed to buy much. I didn't renew the Sam's Club membership.

Costco, on the other hand, makes me smile every time I walk in the joint, I like pretty much everything about the place, from the pork ribs to $4.50 for 35 1/2-liter water bottles to discounted Leatherman Tools to give as gifts.

I was there just today, stocked up on wine, water, rolls of paper towels, granola cookies, and even succumbed to a couple of lbs of King Crab legs from the Costco Seafood Roadshow.

Having had King Crab legs just a week or two ago at Bob Chinn's, which I quite like, the Costco were just as good. I used the Alton Brown method Joel outlined in another thread, of covering with a damp paper towel and microwaving for 60-seconds. Worked very well, thanks Joel.

Well, if you will excuse me, I have to go carry in 5-cases of water and one of wine. See, Costco is even helping me get my exercise.

Enjoy,
Gary

dddane wrote:
Outside of products...there are many subtle differences between Sam's and Costco. I personally much prefer Costco but Sam's is closer. The lighting in Costco is brighter and it just feels cleaner. Sam's is dimly lit. Costco employees are very well paid, much more than Sam's employees. well paid employees==helpful employees. and its nice to support organizations that don't try to use their size to belittle everyone in their chain (as wal-mart/sam's is well known for doing).

Of course, all of this varies from store to store. There are two Costcos that are relatively convenient for me, one that is grim, poorly lit, and inadequate and the other bright and abundantly furnished with things that delight. So it's hard to say that this could be considered a difference between Sam's and Costco, when it is the difference between two different Costcos. I've also always found the staff at Sam's to be more helpful than that at Costco -- or at least at the Costco I generally shop at. (I'm a member of both, as both have advantages.) As I noted previously, there are some items I buy that are vastly less expensive at Sam's (including the membership fee, if that's an issue for you), but I still like Costco for other things.

All that said, I think anyone's best bet is to visit the stores that are most convenient for them and make a choice based, not on the name, but on what the specific store is like. If the only Costco I'd ever seen was the grim one, I'd have thought you were all crazy. Fortunately, I've been to a couple others, and I know they can be quite wonderful. But so are the two Sam's Clubs that I frequent. So visit, make a list of items you're likely to buy, ask for help, notice what the place is like, and pick the place that matches your needs, regardless of the name on the door.

(And does Costco fix flat tires free of charge? Just curious. Sam's does, even if you didn't buy the tires there. Since services were mentioned, I figured it was worth asking.)

Costco will fix flats if the tires were bought there. They used to do it for any tires, but stopped that a few years ago because it was causing too long a wait for tire service. And, presumably, because it's fairly unprofitable.

HI,

I bought my last set of tires at Costco, largely because of the convenience of rotating them while shopping. I wish they did oil changes as well to avoid another unproductive wait elsewhere.

Regards,

I am not a big fan of warehouse clubs. We used to go to the sams in vernon hills, and I would go maybe 2-3x a year. My wife insisted on joining costco, which seems to be a suburban housewife favorite, but is much further away, and I have been once in 2 years. (I think that my wife has been 4x in 2 years). My biggest issue with the whole concept is that I dont think that I save any money there, certainly not enough to pay for the membership. Sure, if I only shopped once a month and had to buy everything at one place, I would be better off at a warehouse club. Their regular prices are certainly much better that a grocery store's regular prices, but when on sale, the prices at supermarkets is less. Yep, albacore tuna at 1.19 a can at sams is better than 1.99 at dominicks, but i only buy it when it is on sale for .99 at dominicks. This seems to be the case in most items that I buy, including meat and produce, and I do 90% of our family's grocery shopping. I suppose that if I went more often, and paid more attention to the clothes, tires, etc, I might feel differently. -Will

Cynthia wrote:
There are two Costcos that are relatively convenient for me, one that is grim, poorly lit, and inadequate and the other bright and abundantly furnished with things that delight. So it's hard to say that this could be considered a difference between Sam's and Costco, when it is the difference between two different Costcos.

out of curiousity... which costco do you consider to be the grim dimly lit one? ...i've been to 10 or 15 different costcos probably and have found them all to be remarkably similar in appearance. though the Lincoln Park one is probably the smallest one i've ever been in.

i've also been in many sam's clubs, and have found them to all be the same as far as the dim lighting goes... I think this is more of a company policy with Wal-mart than anything. have you ever been in wal-mart when half the lights dim? one might think you were in the middle of a power outage, but nope, its just a policy of wal-mart to do this every once in awhile to save money... they're also doing other things like starting to put LED lighting in grocery cases instead of fluorescent, etc...


.... one thing that hasn't been brought up yet...

Return policy.

Costco has the best return policy (that I know of...) of any national store. You can return any product at any time for any reason you want.. also, since you're a member you don't even need a receipt, its all in the computer. clearly there are times when people take advantage of and abuse this though... i've read on other forums of people who bought a TV at costco then every year they go back and return the last year's model so they can upgrade to the latest and greatest... if you ask me, these people should be confined to shopping at aldi, but i guess costco doesn't mind. (they clearly must able to track this sort of thing...).

does sam's have this same return policy?

Sam's and Costco have basically identical return policies, down to the 6 month return window on computers.

I'm not sure if you can return stuff bought online from Sam's to the warehouses, but you can with Costco.

Which is the Lincoln Park one?

I go to the one on Damen, N. of Fullerton.

That's the Lincoln Park one. At least, they describe it as the lincoln park location. Not quite LP to me.

Woo hoo, I live in Lincoln Park!

Lincoln park WAY west, that is...

dddane wrote:out of curiousity... which costco do you consider to be the grim dimly lit one? ...i've been to 10 or 15 different costcos probably and have found them all to be remarkably similar in appearance. though the Lincoln Park one is probably the smallest one i've ever been in.

i've also been in many sam's clubs, and have found them to all be the same as far as the dim lighting goes...

I'm in the far north -- Glenview is the Costco that I found depressing. Sam's in Wheeling has never seemed dimly lit.

I will say that, tonight, I stopped at the nicer of the two Costcos out my way -- Mt. Prospet -- and I found it, as I usually do, immensely frustrating. While Sam's lists the items in an aisle at the beginning of the aisle, Costco just has numbers. I have asked for help, on those occasions when I could find an employee other than the cashier, and everyone simply agrees that it's hard to know where stuff is. I asked if the numbers correlate to anything, like a map, and I've gotten vacant looks. So if here is a plan, no one knows it. If I'm in a hurry, that makes Costco a poor choice. Tonight, after wandering endlessly through the food section, finally finding only one thing I needed, but not in a useful form (chicken thighs -- I don't want them all individually wrapped, as I'm dumping them all in marinade). Couldn't find anything else, so I just left and went to Sam's in Wheeling. Bright, wide open, well sign-posted, I found exactly what I wanted in minutes, and I left much happier with Sam's today than with Costco. I'll still shop at Costco, but only when I have the time for "recreational shopping," not when I actually need to find stuff and get out.

And no, I haven't noticed the lights ever dimming at Walmart. But maybe that's just another advantage to living in the suburbs. Taxes aren't quite as high, so you can leave the lights on.

Cynthia wrote:And no, I haven't noticed the lights ever dimming at Walmart. But maybe that's just another advantage to living in the suburbs. Taxes aren't quite as high, so you can leave the lights on.

That doesn't make much sense. There aren't any Walmarts (or Sam's Clubs) in the city.

Cynthia wrote:And no, I haven't noticed the lights ever dimming at Walmart. But maybe that's just another advantage to living in the suburbs. Taxes aren't quite as high, so you can leave the lights on.

taxes aren't as high in the suburbs???? *lol* .... first i've heard someone say that... though I guess that depends on what suburb you live in, though i highly doubt a lot are significantly cheaper than the city... (btw, my taxes in the city are quite low). ... not to mention wal-mart/sams has very few stores in any major city and is all suburbs .

I found this article on walmartfacts.com which migh shed some light on the lighting in wal-mart and sams:

Every facility Wal-Mart builds today includes a skylight/dimming system. As daylight increases, skylights allow Wal-Mart to dim the lights, or even turn them off, thereby reducing demand for electricity during peak hours. Nationwide, there are nearly 600 Wal-Mart Supercenters, SAM’S CLUBS and Neighborhood Markets with this system, resulting in an annual savings of about 250 million kilowatt hours a year, enough to power 23,000 homes. No other national retailer has a similar daylighting system. Based on an in-house study completed in 1998, Wal-Mart found that its daylighting system utilized 25 to 35 percent less energy than other large national competitors.

...now, i've been in wal-mart where their so called "system" dims over half of the lights and it really does feel like the power went out... (btw, its not even that they dim the lights, they shut off certain lights, since the lighting is all fluorescent). it may be that the censor for daylight thinks there's more light than there actually is, who knows.

prior to this "system" being implemented, it started out that they dimmed them on a schedule (and in my local wal-mart--which was an older one that has since been torn down and rebuilt--they'd announce it over the intercom like they discovered the secret to better sex... "we're saving YOU money by dimming our lighting!") .... they may still do this in older wal-marts that don't have the "system" for doing this..

Wal-Mart and Sam's CLub control all of their utilities from a central location via computers. The weather and utility use is monitored and adjusted to reduce energy consumption. Wal-Mart is probably the best at shaving pennies off their costs corporate wide than any other company.

The Chicago city official Lincoln Park Community has a northern boundary of Diversey and western boundary of the Chicago River. Therefore, the Clybourn Costco is technically in Lincoln Park, just not in what most people think of as Lincoln Park.

I believe that I saw a news item within the last two weeks that the first, and possible last, Walmart in Chicago had just opened.