Costco finally opened up a store in Australia.

The US retailer's keenly anticipated opening at Melbourne's Docklands for the budget-conscious attracted a crowd of about 300, all clutching super-sized trolleys and ready to shop in bulk.
....
On sale at the new stores were items ranging from Huggies 184-pack of nappies for $67.99 and wheelchairs for a little over $250.

In the trolleys of many of the first customers through the doors were Kleenex 60-pack toilet rolls, jumbo toothbrush packs and bulk nappies.

Awesome, lets hope they open the one at gold coast sooner than later.

News.com.au Link

They also have a site: http://www.costco.com.au If you are wondering, membership is $60 per year.

About f***ing time..... greazy posted something useful.

Costco is made of win.

campbells beat them

Can't wait for the one in brissie to open!!

I'll be buying meat/poultry in bulk bigtime!

Damo - I read an article ages ago which had the CEO talking about several locations. No mention of Brisbane costco, only a Gold Coast one.

hell yeah!

My old man went down for the opening, his company is printing stickers and labels for them or something.

I just want to get a big trolley and fill it up like in the pictures, they all look so happy.

greazy, i heard on channel 7 morning show month or so back and the guy from states said they were looking for sydney location and then a brisbane..

I'll be buying meat/poultry in bulk bigtime!

Why not just go to a decent butcher?

campbells beat them

yeah
people will act like costco is the only company to do such a thing
when campbells cash & carry has been around for ages

how big is campbells compared to costco?
Does it have everything under one roof?

never heard of campbells, have to check them out.

is costco one of them stores where you become a member to buy s*** cheaper?

ravn0s, that is correct.



last edited by Damo at 20:15:31 18/Aug/09

People left due to having to wait in queue times of an hour and a half at the checkout. Failed grand opening.

yeah people will act like costco is the only company to do such a thing when campbells cash & carry has been around for ages

Campbells C&C was basically just food for little convenience store to buy in build to resell. If you don't have a fish and chip shop or little milkbar you cant get membership at C&C.

last edited by Zylox at 21:49:47 18/Aug/09

1 1/2 people long? what

yeah was poor engrish aye?

i think that's not quite right Zylox

yes you do have to have an ABN, but big deal, i just flog my mate's campbells card

and it's got a lot of stuff...

We've been in negotiations with costco for a while, talking about supplying them with some of our products for their .au stores.

In that dialogue, they basically said that there is likely to be just 1 store for each "population centre" - ie gold coast/bris are one and the same; and they expect people to travel there. There's likely to be just 1 store for a fair while in sydney and melbourne as well.

seems like brisbane would be the centre of that particular population centre though

is costco one of them stores where you become a member to buy s*** cheaper?

That's known as a warehouse club. A similar concept is the consumers' cooperative, which is co-operatively owned by members.

Yeah sure I'll spend $25 on petrol and 2hrs driving to get some savings...f***ing idiots.

as a compromise put it in boganholme like ikea

Yeah, apparently at that Docklands opening some peeps queued for 4 hours. Srsly.

A long queue time is typical of Costco. That's why I send the missus there (she's the member, too).

Costco does rule, I must say. Cheap grog.

f*** these pretenders

ALDI 4 LYFE

that's a good price for 12 pounds of nutmeg

I thought there was already a costco in brisbane out near the airport depot mall?

DFO ?

Must be, I was sure I saw costco signs up or something. Is DFO any different?

DFO is a shopping centre of factory outlets. Each brand, has its own store, ie a Factory Outlet.

www.dfo.com.au for more info.

DFO is s*** though, nothing is actually that much cheaper

and they only have old lines of everything

Reject Shop FTW!

Costco is a survival-of-the-fittest, everyone's out for themselves experience over here - kinda surreal at first. Also you can return *anything* up to a year afterwards. One of my old housemates returned a $600 bed 11 months after he bought it. schmoove.

ftw

DFO is s*** though, nothing is actually that much cheaper

You're doing it wrong.

and they only have old lines of everything

Again you're doing it wrong. That's half the point of DFO.

paveway, are you that much of a poof you need each new seaons clothing?

It's bloody clothes..you put them on and wear them..Why be a muppet and buy the IT item..just buy whatever..

You're doing it wrong.

Explain how to do it right, then. I've never seen any major bargains there either.

Explain how to do it right, then. I've never seen any major bargains there either.

I've seen plenty of stuff well below what it retails for in normal shops, and below rrp. Particularly the home fittings places, cook ware, linen, that sort of stuff. The sony store there sells quite a few ex demonstrator tv's at large discounts.

The clothes aren't always great bargains, but are usually cheaper than in regular stoes.

I'd say he's doing it wrong.

haven't had a chance to go to costco yet myself, but i've been told that if you want cheap toilet paper or nappies you'd go there.

every so often they'll have a huge discount on a marked item i.e tv, ipods, booze, steak or whatever, so thats an incentive to keep coming back i guess.

I've seen plenty of stuff well below what it retails for in normal shops, and below rrp. Particularly the home fittings places, cook ware, linen, that sort of stuff. The sony store there sells quite a few ex demonstrator tv's at large discounts.

Define "well below" and "large", they're relative terms. Some people think getting 20% off is a massive saving..

The knife set i bought was about $350, it retails for over 600.

Thats just one example.

paveway, are you that much of a poof you need each new seaons clothing?

not at all, i don't follow trends etc

but the brands and clothes i usually buy i buy more than once a year though ZOMG so i've usually seen it all before and it's usually not any cheaper

also doesn't help that most of the mens clothing places are old man places that i don't even bother going into

doesn't help that i am pretty fussy about clothes, t-shirts in particular

last edited by paveway at 11:54:15 20/Aug/09

Oh paveway please teach me how to be more like you (receding hairline and all)

burn...

i find it hard to take payouts on my appearance serious from an iraqi

QGL has a lot of angst lately.

nah it's just greazy, teen angst

Only 300 people at the opening? That sounds like a pretty small crowd, and a number I'd be disappointed with if I were in any way involved with management.

So rather than start a new thread I'm going to do the most anti-QGL thing ever and bump this old one.

Went to Costco at lunch today and was flat out stunned! The first thing you notice is the unbelievable size of this place. As you walk in the front door you're greeted with all the electronic goodies so there's big pallet loads of iPods, USB sticks, printers and so on. Then there is the TV section with latest release Samsung LEDs, etc.

Over to the chocolate area and the s*** is cheap and not just Australian only so you can get Tootsie rolls and other manner of American goodies. All the stuff comes in 1kg+ boxes so something like 48x Mars bars at a cost of about $1.10 each. There was also a monster chuppa chuppa barrel for $190. One thing I did like is that everything is broken down to a per unit or per 100g pricing.

Off to the medicine/personal hygiene section where there is boxes of multi vitamins, Lemsip, Nurofen, 10 pack of Lynx cans and even a 6-pack of KY for those special nights in. Up through the frozen food section and the ice cream is f***ing huge in 10kg tubs. Cereal like Sultana Bran, Just Right, etc all came in 1.5kg boxes and was just as cheap as the 500g boxes you get in Woolies.

Up the back is the fresh food section and we ended up buying a 16" pizza for $15 for lunch which was just beautiful. Plenty of fresh toppings on top, thick base and well made. The bakery section was unbelievable with a mud cake that would cost you $45-55 at The Cheesecake Shop costing about $20. We bought a 12 pack of really big huge muffins (Muffin Break style) for $10. I had a quick look at the non-food things like tyres, toolsets, etc and that was reasonably cheap too.

Overall the consumable items like toilet paper, food (fresh and boxed), confectionery, hygiene products, soft drink, pet food, etc is well priced and will be cheaper than Coles/Woolies however only if that item isn't on sale at Coles/Woolies. The Coke at Costco worked out to be 57c a can whereas during a Woolies special you can pick it up for about 48c a can. Electronic goods would be cheap if it wasn't for the likes of JB that just have huge huge volumes with low margins so for those items you'd be pretty off sticking to non Costco deals.

I think the biggest advantage to shopping at Costco is that you can get it all in the one place and it will last you a month (provided you have the storage) or more. I'll sign up as a member now that I've seen inside it and will be back on the weekend to pick up my 90 rolls of Kleenex 3-ply.

aldi > costco > other large shops

tell me more about those special nights in with a 6 pack of ky plz

...and even a 6-pack of KY for those special nights in.

If you haven't cleaned up post-sex with a wet-and-dry vacuum, you haven't loved. If you haven't had to lay down a painters drop sheet to protect the carpet from the baby oil, you haven't loved.

90 rolls of Kleenex 3-ply.

My missus went away for a month to China, I used one toilet roll in that time. She went away for a month to UK, I used one toilet roll. She chugs through that stuff like it's candy.

you can get Tootsie rolls and other manner of American goodies. All the stuff comes in 1kg+ boxes so something like 48x Mars bars at a cost of about $1.10 each. There was also a monster chuppa chuppa barrel for $190.

And the diabetes is free!!!!

aldi > costco > other large shops

how the f*** would you know Dave?

Its only in Melbourne!

i saw costco on today tonite, and could tell imediately it was inferior to my beloved aldi

because Davey <3s Khel and they webcam seckz every night

Actually in aisle 16 between the Special-K and the 48 dinner rolls you can actually buy yourself an Aldi - that's how awesome Costco is.

haha

ZING!

Can't wait for the Auburn one to open

they sell proper brands, they have to be better than aldi

this is what i could consider selling quality goods at cheaper prices to the people dave

not panamasonic 32.5" lcd

Panafonix?

sony guts!!!!

Sounds awesome. Once again after being in another country I was amazed how expensive so much stuff seems here. Bring on the bulk!

How's this going to fix big companies (Sony, Microsoft, Nikon, Canon etc etc etc) setting our local RRPs higher then most other places ?

and on steam!!!!!!

It's not, but guess what it's going to do. It's going to fix the supermarket prices.

and that's what costco is about, bulk groceries. Not bulk monitors.

Post muffin update: The muffin f***ing rocked. 30seconds in the microwave, bit of butter and it was delicious. A+++++++ for muffins, will shop again.