User conducted a price comparison between Costco and Walmart and suggests that Costco could enhance their price comparison tools to help consumers make informed decisions about their purchases.
tired of the anecdotes. here's what i actually found after comparing unit prices on 22 household items across both stores using popgot. costco cheaper: paper towels, trash bags, laundry detergent, dish pods, olive oil, coffee, vitamins, protein bars. margin varies but costco wins consistently on all of these. walmart cheaper: several store brand canned goods, some condiments, certain cleaning sprays where the great value version beats kirkland per oz. essentially a wash: many snack categories, some cereals, various frozen items. the membership fee ($65/year) pays back in roughly one quarter of buying the costco-winning categories if your household consumes them at normal rates. if you only shop there twice a year it doesn't make sense. if you're doing a monthly run for consumables it does. the "costco is always cheaper" claim is not accurate. the "costco is cheaper on a specific set of high-consumption staples" claim is accurate. know which categories you're buying before deciding.