Thursday, March 4, 2010

Costco sucks and so are you

Lately I've been going to Costco for my temp job as a PA, buying muffins and water and all the assortments for a good morning. While I browsed the aisles today I noticed how shitty Costco is laid out. This place is literally the worst place to go to shop comfortably. More power to the prices, can't beat those, but give me a break with this floor plan.
Here's what I dislike

Labeling:
This place is labeled so poorly. I find myself walking in circles every time I go in. Yes they have their red signs that tell you what you're looking at in the meat department, or letting you know where to get your mobile phones. Aside from that I have no idea where I am, especially because the red signs they do have a hidden by mountains of items in bulk. I spent 30 minutes looking for muffins today thinking, "ok cereal, muffins for breakfast right? When I find cereal i'll find muffins. cereal cereal cereal THERE's the cereal. ok…. ok…. oatmeal…. uhh….dog food? Shit where are the muffins?!" Turns out the muffins are in the bread section with no label saying "bread" nor "muffins" anywhere besides the white price tag that has the name of the item in fine print with big block letters displaying the price. The aisles do have numbers, but I guess they stop handing out aisle key charts after 6am.

Blind customers:
Due to this lack of labeling, people can't see their destination from across the store and walk strategically to it while looking straight ahead. What happens is everyone has to keep jerking their heads back and forth and thus, no one is really looking where they are going. It is just a huge mess filled with stressed dads, slow grandmas and zig zaggy kids which don't help the situation whatsoever.

Aisles:
Oh thank god, the aisles are much wider to allow all the people to walk through them effortlessly. What? The carts are 3 times bigger than normal?… oh…. well then. The aisles are giant, the carts are giant, the items are giant, so the only thing that is a normal size is the people shopping.

I went to Fresh & Easy before Costco and had the time of my life. Even with their dim lighting and self serve register that eventually needs a worker to punch in a code (go figure), it was very easy to shop and find what I needed. In fact, any other store in the US in labeled better than Costco.

Costco, you have a bajillion items that come a half bajillion to a pack and you took the time to put them all in relevant aisles, so why not take the extra 5 minutes to hang some friggin signs. Even if they say things like "brown food," or "mornin stuff," it'll be better than the system you have now.

2 comments:

  1. Costco is a much different store than "fresh and easy".
    The layout is great if you are not a total idiot that cant understand the difference between lettuce and a paper shredder.
    The stores change layout infrequently so even a blind person can figure the place out.

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