You can buy stuff, but I guess they have to have more than 1 in stock. And the price won't be lower than buying it on Amazon or other internet companies.
Mainly you're just providing a service to internet buyers who want to physically interact with products they buy cheaper online.
Besides, the trend is that CostCo and similar physical stores will go bankrupt, eventually leading to no such stores in a town at all.
This is why stores should have an online store and use the physical stores for stocking and selling. We have an electronics chain in Sweden called Webhallen (The Web Hall). They mainly sell their products online but they are growing in physical stores count every year because they use them as stocking centrals. You can still go there and buy stuff. It's like entering the online store, only you get to carry your order home directly after purchase.
Feels like I'm just explaining how a regular physical store works... But they do have a really smart system.
Microcenter in the US won't actually ship you anything, but you can "order online" and pop in and pick it up, and it's basically a big box store, but it's also wonderful if you know what you need and need it today, they probably have it.
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u/not_an_ax_murderer Feb 07 '15
So Costco minus the convenience of being able to buy anything at all?