In my opinion, Costco came to Australia with regular bargains at the beginning on many items. Now it's mostly the cheap petrol. Is there something I'm missing ozbargainers?
List out your regular bargain items or whether you cancelled your membership.
Their bagels are rubbish. Basically thick fluffy bread with no chew. People have no idea about bagels in this country, hard to find good ones.
I disagree, their bagels are pretty good - they just need to be lightly toasted. But they're not cheap.
Fuel, chickens, meat is on the lower end of prices but the quality is excellent, bread
The Gippsland vanilla yoghurt used to be 9.99 for the 2kg. Now it's 14 and Cosworth is 16 :(. But as others has said the beef mince is fantastic quality and price. The Kirkland muesli (mod: edited) bars are great value too.
The Kirkland Muslim bars are great value too.
What percentage of Muslim do they contain?
Maybe they are Halal.
Is cannibalism halal, letbalone legal?
Kodiak Pancake/Waffle mix. The Kirkland Maple Syrup to go with it. The 3L of milk. The cheese is definitely top notch. The ham, the bacon, stuffed pasta, the meat is good quality. The alcohol is usually good value. Frankly I’ve got my money’s worth in the tasters.
I forgot about their cheese… thank you!
Right now they have the triple cream brie in stock. Always my favourite.
meat and random clothes. Meat tends to be slightly cheaper than the supermarkets but the quality is always a lot better! Especially the steaks and mince. The only downside is that you need to buy 3kg of mince at a time vs 500g.
They always have cheap Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger etc clothes
Korean banana milk. We find them cheaper than the asian grocery stores
chicken thigh
roast chicken
petrol
eggs
milk
juice
specials (I think Chicken Tenders are decent buy atm, sometimes you can get something good in store)
drinks (water, soft drink (when on special) - alcohol is supposed to be cheap, but I don't buy that so I wouldn't know)
Kirkland stuff - usually decent quality for decent price, like the dishwashing tablets
Fancy Feast Cat food - can usually snipe it for less than $1 a can
If you know how much stuff goes for and have the time to shop around, it can be good. Might save $20+ a shop.
I think it's only worth it if you live close or drive past often enough (to work or something). Otherwise, would prob suggest handing in the card lol
You basically just listed exactly what I buy there. Only things you missed are 1kg box of mixed lettuce leaves, and beef mince.
Go for the little tomatoes as well.
Yeah what Jakey said, you know your stuff!
I'd add chicken breast… and rump steak ('sirloin' in there) which is cheap for the quality… apart from that you have it nailed 100%
It isn't much considering the 1000s of items in there
Thanks for this - I live close, but I'm also a vegetarian and most people are saying the meat is cheap… so still on the fence
Find someone with a membership and go have a look. They have a big vegetable section and they have quite a bit of vegetarian frozen food as well. If you are vegetarian, rather than Vegan, the cheese is great as well.
Whats really worth it are all the rebates, especially the food ones that get marked down to 10-30% of its price, just chuck it in the freezer.
Their bakery stuff is good value, I haven't tried a lot as its so huge but I'm eyeing the dulce de leche brownies for the next gathering!
30 pack eggs - get it for the convenience but I always have issues of at least 1 cracked egg in a pack, don't really think about opening it up to roll them around in store lol.
When do they get marked down??
It's random days per store, pretty much when the stuff is close to expiry. Apparently they do end of day markdowns too like colesworth but I've never been there that late to see
their black forest was great, then it was shit, basically a chocolate cake with a bit of black forest in the center
Now its a bit better, but no where near where it was before and its gone up like 35%
Unfortunately not ev fast charging.
Why would Costco be responsible for paying for the electricity to power your car for you ?
No free hair gel in the bathrooms either. Deal breaker.
the kirkland tp/bath tissues aint cheap anymore
liquor..if you know what to buy.
Mince, Parmesan, rotisserie chickens, bull craisins bulk slivered almonds
Croissant, taste heaps better and bigger in size compared to colesworth.
Yep, just handling them briefly and your fingers are soaked in butter. Far superior. Coles are average and WW are terrible. Need to start getting multiple trays.
in WA -
$6.99 roast chicken
$10.99 - tray of 30 egg
The 1 kg coffee beans on sale whatever brand
Fuel and cooked Chooks
very little worthwhile in their now. Really only go there for the smoked hotdogs (not cheap but can't find elsewhere) and the oysters which are usually as good a quality as you can get anywhere else in Canberra but a lot cheaper. The babyback ribs are also hard to find elsewhere and I love putting those on the smoker.
Chicken thigh
Chicken breast
Milk
Eggs
Rump steak (they call it sirloin)
Beef mince
Rotisserie chickens
Gourmet sausages (the 14.99/kg ones)
Fuel
sirloin and rump are not the same thing. sirloin is a better cut.
Eye glasses. The equipment is modern, results are great. About half the price of a retailer like OPSM. Range of frames is a bit limited, but was fine for me. I bought three pairs with progressive lenses for less than $1,000.
My brother's MIL is mid 90s and deaf. He says the hearing aids from Costco are great quality and about half the price of the rip-off that is retail hearing specialists.
I have always thought the hearing aid market is one ripe for disruption, much like the tablet market was pre iPad.
And yes I know that is ironic given iPad prices these days, but pre 2010 a windows tablet set up with specialist software (say for voice impaired) would be $15-20k. Post iPad it is around $1k (for an iPad and $300 for the software) with a battery that lasts and doesn’t require a sling around the neck to deal with the weight.
Only visits Costco to buy my bulking foods.
Jasmin Rice 22.5kgs, Eggs, Scotch fillet/Mince, Chicken Breast and repeat.
Really cheap as I am eating 4500 calories per day compare to woolies/coles.
$2.99 hotdog plus unlimited soft drinks.
I thought they are $1.99 ? Unless is dearer in Vic?
It's $1.99
100% dog kibble. It's non kirkland counterpart is like $150 vs 75. (it's taste of the wild)
Chicken
Spinach
Peanut Butter
Petrol
Soju (sometimes cheaper than the local Korean shops @ $6/bottle)
Barra
The fake yakult
Sometimes the stacked discounts are super ridiculous. We've had some crazy deals on spider crab, lobster, mince, beef products
I've been to Costco for one visit in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2024.
Everything has always been priced with the same idea.
Everything is about 15% cheaper then full branded priced items at Coles/Woolies but the trade off is that they are in huge bulk amounts that you will surely throw away unless you have a huge family or freeze everything and enjoy the reduction in quality.
Most prices are similar or more expensive then Aldi
Nothing is as cheap as a good Coles/Woolies special, you don't even need a 50% off deal to beat Costco.
For the things that are cheaper, there are caveats
Petrol - The savings are only worth it if you are close to Costco or going there anyway
Roast Chicken - Inferior to Woolies/Coles - Seems to be their mantra, they aren't interested in customers who would pay a few dollars more for something better.
Everything non food: Only worth it if you can't wait for a sale unless you get very lucky with a good Costco promotion on that item.
And personally as someone who looks at ingredients and can be a bit picky, Costco ingredients seem to be decided in the mainstream/mass produced style where other supermarkets have more specialty products that I'm willing to pay more for anyway.
I only have to look at about 90% of the type of shoppers who go to Costco and whats in their trolleys to realise I'm not their target market.
The most impressive thing about Costco is the cooked pizzas after checkout.
Roast chicken inferior to Coles Woolies? They're twice the size, lower priced and the meat is moist. I dare you to to find a Coles chicken that isn't a dry tough mess, where the drumsticks and wings aren't leathery.
Costco just injects their roast chickens with brine which you can tell when you taste it as well as by looking at it.
You can inject everything with brine, that won't make it a good product.
BRB, telling every professional and competition smoker they're doon it rong
Costco pumps the chickens with hefty doses of brine, so you are paying for that and getting less chicken.
Pumping any meat with brine and then cooking it in an oven rotisserie will just make the meat increase in size while drying out in random places & the flavour in the meat is expelled while the flavourless brine replaces it. That's a lose-lose scenario.
Personally I find their brine injected chickens revolting, I'd rather a drier colesworth chook with a bit of sauce than that American abomination.
The real lifehack is to cook your own, with the wealth of information on youtube these days you can find a recipe that suits your tastes with minimal effort, and thermometers to make sure it's at your perfect doneness have never been cheaper or more widespread.
Hate to break it to you but I am pretty sure they're brined too.
@tororm: Little bit is fine if it's not super noticeable but the first time I ate a Costco chook I genuinely thought there was something wrong with it. For the record I'm not a fan of the heavily brined supermarket bacon either.
Actually a reasonable amount of the electronics and homewares are cheaper than elsewhere. They just get really cheap when on special. $2.99 for that big a slice of pizza is bad news for the diet.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.
We tend to go to specialty markets AND costco for what we need. We find Costco incredibly good value as we're able to purchase in bulk - yes our bills end up in 4-digits, but then we only go every couple of months.
Definitely find Coles/Woolies/Aldi inferior to their Kirkland/Costco equivalents.
And personally as someone who looks at ingredients and can be a bit picky, Costco ingredients seem to be decided in the mainstream/mass produced style where other supermarkets have more specialty products that I'm willing to pay more for anyway.
This is very interesting to me. You find Colesworth and Aldi … less mainstream?
Coles/Woolies have specialty products.
Costco focuses on what they can get in huge bulk quantities for a low price.
In other words, most of what I buy from Coles/Woolies/Aldi isn't available from Costco and when it is available, its in a quantity that means I'm not consuming a fresh product.
If you are buying months worth of food then you are either buying highly processed food or you are freezing food, both of which is unappealing for me.
We buy fresh produce from Costco for about a week or two. Obviously perishables do not store well.
In other words, most of what I buy from Coles/Woolies/Aldi isn't available from Costco and when it is available, its in a quantity that means I'm not consuming a fresh product.
Yeah absolutely fair enough. This is largely why we complement our Costco trips with the "gaps" being filled by Coles/Woolies + specialty supermarkets (e.g. Korean/Japanese stores in Eastwood/Artarmon etc).
If you are buying months worth of food then you are either buying highly processed food or you are freezing food, both of which is unappealing for me.
Yeah the latter, which works out well for us.
Thanks for responding.
Their audiology service is excellent and they charge a lot less - in the thousands less - for hearing aides.
A 10 pack of batteries is $1. At Coles it's $8-10
I feel the same way but I just found out I need glasses and the difference in price for the exact same glasses pays for five years of membership.
I usually only buy 1kg fresh spinach, the bulk mince, chicken breast, Oatly oat milk, the multipack of tiny cheeses, ravioli, bulk snack-size Kit Kats, canned tuna, Napolitana sauce, cinnamon rolls, mixed nuts (only when on sale) and of course petrol. That makes the membership worth it financially but I certainly don’t find the shopping experience as fun as I used to. I grew up in the US so there was an element of nostalgia but now seeing the prices escalate it’s just a downer. All of the above are better prices and quality than the awful duopoly though so I’m keeping up my membership.
The difference in price for Leading Raw dog food between Costco and other stores alone is worth the membership. Kibble is ok too, plus occasional deals on meat.
It's pretty naff, the latest weekend deals Costco emailed out are all luxury items in the $100's, for examble $2000 robot vacuum or a $1200 electrified golf club bag caddy. Targeted at the rich idiot members I guess.
If they don't play their cards right I'm sure they will lose members, and shutting down Docklands and moving will become a huge liability.
I don't disagree with losing Docklands, it is our local.
However, I don't think Costco is shutting down anytime soon. Went to Epping today and the queues at the checkouts were pretty long. They didn't have a scratch and dent area which was a bit disappointing.
They're doing incredibly well and will continue to do very well. In 2023, their sales numbers were up 20%:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/costco-sales…
In a lot of cases, they're able to sell higher quality groceries at a very competitive price point when compared to Coles/Woolies/Aldi. The biggest drawback is the volume you need to buy (like a tub of Lurpak is 1Kg!), but that perfectly suits their target demo.
Contrary to the image they seem to carefully cultivate, Costco is exceptionally popular among/targets the upper middle class who feel they are getting a good deal (this is why the aesthetics lean into the American povvo warehouse look) while being able to afford buying groceries in bulk.
As the target seems to be folks with families buying in bulk and who have the ability to STORE this appropriately. Now think of this demographic a bit more carefully, these are the folks who are likely not renting shoeboxes/own their own home, are able to spend a (profanity) more by buying in bulk (imagine having the liquidity to spend 2-3 months of grocery bills all at once), and being able to afford atleast a chest freezer and the corresponding additional uptick in energy bills.
This means their target demographic, can very well afford these items.
My guess would be that it is related to the US$ being so high and the cost of international + local freight.
Do you easily save the membership per year?
I stopped going as I found id be walking around buying in bulk and my usual $100 shop would be $200 for stuff I didnt use all that much but thats more of a me problem.
We save on the membership but we buy other things apart from just the groceries. I do agree you can end up buying too much if you want to make the most of the membership.
Mince and Eggs are my big two items. The mince price is getting close to Colesworth but the quality is much better. Chicken breast is the same deal- easy enough for me to portion out and store in the chest freezer. Their American streaky bacon isn't cheaper than supermarkets (about $16 for 3 packs) but I far prefer the quality. Milo and rice, oyster sauce and soy sauce, used to get their tins of diced tomatoes but they only have Mutti now. Also used to get their peanut butter but the kids decided they hate it now.
Petrol is the big one, we live <10mins from Costco so it's easy enough to fill up there once a fortnight, plus no messing around with Perth's fortnightly price cycle. Plus anywhere that lets me fill up without dragging the kids out of the car is a plus for me.
Clothing is good quality if you can grab bargains, often they have markdowns to $10 a shirt etc and I'll stock up for my husband. If we weren't so close I probably wouldn't still have the membership. We used to go in and spend hundreds on random foods but now with kids there's just barely any time to snatch up what we do need (and fill them up on samples!) and go. Now we'll try a new treat every so often (those stroopwafels…)
Can anyone who's used their optometrist give a ballpark price? My husband and I both need new glasses and I'm hearing it's cheaper.
Optometrist is bulk billed to Medicare if you are due an eye test. Frames $60-450. Lenses are not as cheap as specsavers for basic ones, but progressives are an absolute bargain. I paid $420 for Ted Baker frames and progressive lenses ($200 covered by health insurance), OPSM equivalent would be $1500
Cheers, thanks for this.
Nice!
Have you compared contact lenses? Curious if they are much cheaper too.
Yup Costco beef mince is just crazy good. LOL ….. compare to coles and woolies home brands…. Not comparable at all. Cheaper and better quality…
When I make burger patties. COles and woolies std mince has so much oil on the pan…. crazy. Costco barely…
I liked a pair of Ray Bans for reading glasses and they were $500+ at OPSM. At Costco I could get them plus another pair for $230. For both! Not each.
If anyone wants a pro tip, go shop there the day before a public holiday. If you're really wanting a deal, be there around 5pm and most of the bakery / fresh food will be on markdown.
There should be good deals Thursday, Sat and Monday this week.
I find they match Woolworths regular prices, but half the stuff at Woolworths is on sale each week and cheaper.
these days I'm just paying $65 for the privilege of entering their warehouse, as long as I can break even with the things I "need" then the value proposition is ok. There's plenty of things you can blow $65 on fairly quickly these days
Fuel plus I stop over to check any reduced sale items, grab some free samples, get a large slice of pizza, hotdog and drink all for $5. Grab a $7 rotisserie chicken which nowadays beats colesworth in both flavour, size and price.
Tofu
Kimchi.
Eggs
Salmon
Fuel
BBQ chicken
BBQ chicken
Did I forget BBQ chicken?
The list goes on, the fuel alone is worth paying the annual fee.
if they made that chicken better, it would be worth it.
costco is out the door. just buy some gift cards and cancel your membership, go in when you need to, not because you have a "membership"
And when you run out of gift cards you will need a member to buy cards for you. You also can’t buy fuel or online purchases with gift cards.
never used costco online, dont plan to, fuel is out of the way.. you have to drive all that way and wait in a queue, is your time not important?
@try2bhelpful: my plan works, your just jelly you have to continue paying for a membership lol
i can get gift cards online for costco i dont need to be a member
@johnfuller: So where do you get your Costco gift cards online from? Me, I’m happy to be a member because I use the perks you can’t use. Also the membership price isn’t that high. I’m just pointing out the limitations of what you are doing.
@try2bhelpful: what perks lol, is it worth the yearly fee, your made to feel like a criminal at the door, show your pass like your some kind of vip,
@johnfuller: Access to restricted areas doesn’t make it look like you are a criminal. It might make everyone else look like one.
Only thing cheap at Costco are the vulchers scrambling and pushing their way to get a free sample
What's a vulcher?
We call the seagulls. Particularly with the meat we wait until, at least, the first tray is gone. Often you will get a better sample with the later trays as they are getting rid of samples before they get too cold.
Some items are cheap at lower prices only when on special. Only.
And sometimes bulky items with "free" delivery are worth it.
Other than that pricing is average, sometimes costlier than the same item in Aldi.
Costco USA has an incredible variety at reasonable prices.
Not the case in Australia as it feels rather limited.
I will still keep the membership alive.
It is only the same item at ALDI if it is the same brand. I very much doubt that given ALDI. Apart from their Kirkland brand Costco tends to have name brand products.
Nutella to the rescue.
Cheaper to get 2 (two) kilos of Nutella at Costco than a "reasonable" amount in Aldi. As Nutella does dry out.
If you are eating 2kg of Nutella you have bigger problems than cost.
@try2bhelpful: I am not, hence Aldi's reasonable size Nutella is better. And cheaper, or rather more cost effective.
@LFO: I think we are in agreement on that. I suspect that amount if Nutella would be for a commercial group.
The hotdogs
Fuel, some meats, most bakery items that are cooked on site. Not much else. Fuel pays for the membership if you live locally. I wouldn't drive more than 30 mins for a costco though. MANY things are very close to their used by dates I've found also. Most meats if you don't freeze will be out of date by the time you get it home
costco is out the door. just buy some gift cards and cancel your membership, go in when you need to, not because you have a "membership"
And when your gift cards run out?
find a member to buy you some more
Bagels