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Extremely Normal and Well Adapted Adults Go to COSTCO to Buy Pokemon Cards (for their kids, of course)

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
I'm neither normal nor am I well adapted but I don't buy Pokemon cards.

I do have those Pokemon encyclopedia although.
 

LordCBH

Member
Scalpers are absolutely ruining this hobby.

Preorders for the next English set that come out in March sold out in literal seconds when they became available like a week and a half ago.
 

0neAnd0nly

Member
Not sure why Costco didn’t have a limit on it. Having gotten Pokémon cards from Costco a few months ago and there was a limit.

Also, it’s still pretty easy to get Pokémon cards so this has no impact on the kids.

Gaf has turned into this:

wont-somebody-please-think-of-the-children-think-of-the-children.gif

One of the videos said "limit of 10".

But you don't even have to think of the children (not that you shouldn't) to point out how ludicrously ridiculous this behavior is. Totally beneath human society, and really worrisome for if stuff ever hits the fan, this is thee rough age of men that will be set forth to try to defend and rebuild.

Yeah...
 

Soapbox Killer

Grand Nagus
Why would a store drop a pallet of "ANYTHING" and then let people act like savages for them? It doesn't take that much effort to keep the cards and patrons in line, just don't drop the items like rice from a helicopter over a refugee camp.


I love people but I hate this behavior.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Why would a store drop a pallet of "ANYTHING" and then let people act like savages for them? It doesn't take that much effort to keep the cards and patrons in line, just don't drop the items like rice from a helicopter over a refugee camp.


I love people but I hate this behavior.
It's Costco.

The floor clerks only care about inventory and pallets. And when it's time to put out product, all they care about is dropping it and bolting to the next pallet.

These people have zero consideration for etiquette or product knowledge. Nor do the managers or customer service desk. Costco is a kind of store where the employees are purely transactional.... put out product, check them out at a cashier, or refund them a the customer service desk. That's it. I dont even remember Costco stores ever do a Max Limit on purchases. I've seen it online. But not in store.

The only people who have knowledge and some form of control and organization actually comes from the departments like optical, car shop, prescription drugs who have trained people and their products arent pallet drops.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Here in Mexico we criticize them a lot, but they are stupid because that food spoils in a few days and they lose money.
What is the food? What do the Mexicans crave?
I was wondering that too. What was the occasion for a made scramble for some kind of cake?

It doesn't make sense for mad mobbing because Costco is a store that typically has shit loads of that stuff coming in to restock, especially deals which can last more than a week. Some are 2-4 weeks long. More pallet drops will come another day. They might even have more in the back but the stock guys will get around to bringing those on the floor tomorrow.

There's a possibility these are store owners buying dirt cheap product to resell too like a scalper at their store or restaurant. You can always tell by how much they buy.
 
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Heimdall_Xtreme

Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Here in Mexico we criticize them a lot, but they are stupid because that food spoils in a few days and they lose money.
I was wondering that too. What was the occasion for a made scramble for some kind of cake?

It doesn't make sense for mad mobbing because Costco is a store that typically has shit loads of that stuff coming in to restock, especially deals which can last more than a week. Some are 2-4 weeks long. More pallet drops will come another day. They might even have more in the back but the stock guys will get around to bringing those on the floor tomorrow.

There's a possibility these are store owners buying dirt cheap product to resell too like a scalper at their store or restaurant. You can always tell by how much they buy.
It's a King cake, because in Mexico there is a date to celebrate the Three Wise Men.

So we celebrate that day with that King cake which is a good price, but those people come and triple the price for the holiday, that's why they do that.
 

GateofD

Member
Its all up to the floor manager on how to handle it. Most don't care and just let the pigs get at it. (nvm, giving pigs a bad name, actual pigs are actually organized when feeding from a slopbin)

Best I saw was where they handed out tickets beforehand to the people in line, and already pre-filled the carts to max, and each ticket let you take one of the carts.
 

BlackTron

Member
Yeah after the new app got me back into it I flirted with the idea of getting some 151 cards but nah ain't nobody got time for that. Damn it's like it's even worse than when I was a kid, and that was insanity.
 

Paasei

Member
Not sure what’s more retarded: People that do this shit on the videos, or the people willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a piece or carton.

Also didn’t even know this was still a thing. Seems to be even more of a thing now than it was for me in the 90s.
 

navii

My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
Capitalism has failed us. It's not the people's fault. The prices should have been so high as not to create such a demand frenzy.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Capitalism has failed us. It's not the people's fault. The prices should have been so high as not to create such a demand frenzy.
Costcos mandate is low prices and low profit margins where they max out at about a 15% margin. That’s it. So when a supplier sells it to them at Price X, Costco only marks it up a bit. It creates wild swings in value the bigger the starting gap between cost and price. Other stores would jack it up big but Costco won’t.

Clothing and shoes are good examples of categories with traditionally high mark ups. That’s why jeans at a store costs $100 but similar jeans at Costco same brand are $25. The jeans cost each store probably only about $20 each. So that’s why you see huge differences in prices between Costco and other stores.
 
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Haint

Member
Costcos mandate is low prices and low profit margins where they max out at about a 15% margin. That’s it. So when a supplier sells it to them at Price X, Costco only marks it up a bit. It creates wild swings in value the bigger the starting gap between cost and price. Other stores would jack it up big but Costco won’t.

Clothing and shoes are good examples of categories with traditionally high mark ups. That’s why jeans at a store costs $100 but similar jeans at Costco same brand are $25. The jeans cost each store probably only about $20 each. So that’s why you see huge differences in prices between Costco and other stores.
That might be true for clothes or food, but even that is dubious, more likely some old wives tale that represented a nugget of truth long ago that has been passed along as a marketing story. Having worked at BB in the past with access to the store cost on many items, I can tell you with 1000% certainty Costco's margins on stuff like electronics and small/major appliances are nowhere close to 15%, even diluting it with comically ridiculous amounts of overhead and cost of business expenses. For starters 95% of name brand stuff is price controlled these days and they literally wouldn't be allowed to sell it 15% over invoice even if they wanted to, the major manufacturers would collude and pull their entire allotment by the end of a business day. Protip, the $3000 77" OLED at Costco that's simultaniously $2000 on Greentoe is still being sold for a handsome profit even at $2000.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
That might be true for clothes or food, but even that is dubious, more likely some old wives tale that represented a nugget of truth long ago that has been passed along as a marketing story. Having worked at BB in the past with access to the store cost on many items, I can tell you with 1000% certainty Costco's margins on stuff like electronics and small/major appliances are nowhere close to 15%, even diluting it with comically ridiculous amounts of overhead and cost of business expenses. For starters 95% of name brand stuff is price controlled these days and they literally wouldn't be allowed to sell it 15% over invoice even if they wanted to, the major manufacturers would collude and pull their entire allotment by the end of a business day. Protip, the $3000 77" OLED at Costco that's simultaniously $2000 on Greentoe is still being sold for a handsome profit even at $2000.
I work in the industry. You can even google it yourself as it’s common knowledge. Costco is not selling a $3000 tv at a dirt cheap cost price.

Unless things changed a lot the past 15 years, I used to work at an electronics company too. The reason why electronics stores sell for cheap is because they get monthly or quarterly discounts from the supplier to flush out inventory so the prices of electronics swing wildly so Future Shop or Best Buy Canada back in the day aren’t stuck with something at a high cost all year.

Even for small stuff like food, even if they can make higher margins they don’t. They will literally ask for a higher invoice price so the margin maxes at 15% at the agreed to retail price. Or if the retail price suggested by the acct manager makes sense, Costco will just say set a price that makes it 15%. So we literally just make up an invoice price afterwards in a weird reverse cost way.

For small electrics it’s still 15% (give or take as the lowest I’ve seen is 12%). My current company sells small electrical gadgets too and it’s the same method as food and cleaning supplies.

Pending how systems are set up, the invoice cost you see is probably just that. Invoice cost. You wouldnt see all the back end discounts given since those are rebates back to the store after unless your systems showed everything. Your system probably wouldn’t show other discounts a store gets from suppliers like terms and refund allowances either which aren’t part of retail margin math.
 
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Haint

Member
I work in the industry. You can even google it yourself as it’s common knowledge. Costco is not selling a $3000 tv at a dirt cheap cost price.
I don't doubt it's parroted as a marketing and branding story for the business, what I'm saying they absolutely are not capping every item at a 15% margin. Which you seem to agree with based on your TV comment? If it's referring to a diluted net margin (which it has to be), literally any business could "factually" make the same claim with a modicum of book cooking. In other words, it's objectively false in a universal sense, but subjectively true by their limited definition of it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I don't doubt it's parroted as a marketing and branding story for the business, what I'm saying they absolutely are not capping every item at a 15% margin. Which you seem to agree with based on your TV comment? If it's referring to a diluted net margin (which it has to be), literally any business could "factually" make the same claim with a modicum of book cooking. In other words, it's objectively false in a universal sense, but subjectively true by their limited definition of it.
With so many products I’m sure there’s outliers.

Just like the 15% max isn’t even a max since when things go on sale the companies I work for at least fund the entire discount. So their margin goes up when it’s on sale to roughly 20-25%.

It’s the only account I can think of off the top of my head that mandates full compensation. At least all the companies I’ve worked for pay full. Other stores will self fund some of it themselves.
 
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