Costco Endorsement

Through the years Costco has won our loyalty with their return/warranty policy. Once again, they have earned more points. In November of 2008, Kathy bought a Tommy Bahama watch for me as a Christmas present. The original battery died recently and she took it in to a watch store to have the battery replaced. Apparently one of the screws had been stripped in original assembly and the back couldn't be removed without drilling. Today, she took the watch back to Costco and no questions asked about the return and a full refund was issued for the original cost almost four years ago.

I love Costco, Neil. And really I can see the city of Kirkland from my Condo in Seattle It's where their HQ were before they moved to Issaquah, east of Seattle. Luckily they chose not to change their brand name to Issaquah :) I haven't had any problems like you, but I'm glad to learn they have such a great return policy.

Pete:

I certainly didn't mean to infer that we have had what I consider to be excessive problems with products purchased at Costco. However, the few items that we have had to return were handled with no problems and no backlash. When purchasing larger ticket items, this factor does come into play. The latest example of the watch is a great example since we had no idea that the watch had a buggered screw.

Let me paraphrase the john: Who cares? What does this have to do with Mexico besides jack shit? CG you need another hobby that gets you away from the keyboard for awhile.

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And Johninajijic,

They have the same return policy here as they do up north. I believe that's why I thought it was OK to write a strong endorsement of my favorite store. Sorry you were upset, John :).

And the prices are so good. At Costco Mexico, you can buy 36 rolls of TP for $199 (sometimes on sale for about $179). Superlake sells the same Kirkland product for usually $299 pesos. I could go on and on, but maybe you don't care that I'm cheap. :)

Oh and go to the Costco Mexico web page and you can view the monthly coupons. There are some good deals out there :)

You can tell that I am really full of sh!t. Thats why I need so much TP, John :)

You're not cheap Pete...you're economically intelligent.

seisdedos wrote:Let me paraphrase the john: Who cares? What does this have to do with Mexico besides jack shit? CG you need another hobby that gets you away from the keyboard for awhile.

I disagree,we made our monthly run to Costco in Guadalajara yesterday,good products,good service,other retailers in Mexico could learn a thing or two from the way Costco runs their stores in Mexico.

viajero wrote:

seisdedos wrote:Let me paraphrase the john: Who cares? What does this have to do with Mexico besides jack shit? CG you need another hobby that gets you away from the keyboard for awhile.

I disagree,we made our monthly run to Costco in Guadalajara yesterday,good products,good service,other retailers in Mexico could learn a thing or two from the way Costco runs their stores in Mexico.

Yeah? Did you take back a product without the receipt that you purchased a couple of years ago and they replaced it free of charge? We went round and around with Costco in Guadalajara over a pair of eye glass frames that would not keep their shape. Never did get the problem fixed to our satisfaction. In fact most product guarantees here are only good for a very short time from the retailer, be it Costco or Sam's or others, and after that period has expired you must deal directly with the company that produced the product.

Nope, we've never had to return anything we've purchased at Costco.
If you know of a better run major retailer in Mexico please share it with us.

viajero wrote:Nope, we've never had to return anything we've purchased at Costco.
If you know of a better run major retailer in Mexico please share it with us.

Liverpool has always given us great service as has Fabricas de Francia. Zara does a good job on no questions asked returns. Sanborns offers good service. I really don't see how much better the service is in Costco than other places. Commercial Mexicana is well run. What do you really mean by well run? When we visit Costco, I don't see anything special about how it is run. It doesn't seem any different to me than Sam's or other big retailers.

The original post - I guess? - is about Costco in the USA, which might be irrelevant here in Mexico as much as I like the store, both here and there. (I used to shop Costco Store #1 on 4th Ave., So. in Seattle, so....) I'm amazed that Costco refunded purchase price on a 4-year-old watch, no questions asked. How the hell did they know the 4-year-old price that was paid? Who keeps receipts for a watch bought four years ago? Impressive.

I had a good experience returning an item to Costco here in Mexico. Bought a mattress pad cover....our (crap) washing machine shreaded it a little on the first wash. Mildly. I'm pretty certain it was the fault of our washing machine, but who knows? And the item was just expensive enough to warrant a return trip, so I took it back, with receipt in hand, only a couple of weeks after purchase.

The person at returns didn't even bother to pull the thing out of the original packaging to find the problem. No questions asked.

I was stunned but happy, expecting a conversation. Wasn't a refund, but an exchange, and the new one is fine.

I also appreciate hearing about other retailers in Mexico who have decent customer service. (Have had to arm-wrestle a return at Coppel.) So thanks for the heads up about Liverpool and Fabricas de Francia. Don't know what Zara is.

MexicoPete wrote:And Johninajijic,

They have the same return policy here as they do up north. I believe that's why I thought it was OK to write a strong endorsement of my favorite store. Sorry you were upset, John :).

And the prices are so good. At Costco Mexico, you can buy 36 rolls of TP for $199 (sometimes on sale for about $179). Superlake sells the same Kirkland product for usually $299 pesos. I could go on and on, but maybe you don't care that I'm cheap. :)

Oh and go to the Costco Mexico web page and you can view the monthly coupons. There are some good deals out there :)

You can tell that I am really full of sh!t. Thats why I need so much TP, John :)

Pete - I think you're referring to another John, but if you aren't I don't get this whole post!!! Is there something wrong with you??? Are you off your meds, coz something is wrong. You're always going out of your way lately to pick a fight.

I have been shopping at Costco once a month for my 11 years here and have never bad mouthed you about Costco or what you have written. And I have never had to return anything. Their quality on many things is excellent and sometimes cheaper than other stores. An example that I can think of is, I have two Kirkland white long sleeve dress shirts that I'll put against any manufacturer for quality for 230 pesos each.

FYI, I highly endorse Liverpool and Fabrica de Francia too. Good quality selection of all types of items. Sometime you can hit a 20% off sale at Liverpool.

Rosa Venus wrote: Don't know what Zara is.

I wish I didn't either! Spain's Zara, is the world's largest clothing retailer. They are found in all of Guadalajara's nicer malls.

To clarify a few things:
1) There was no receipt necessary since Costco tracks every customer purchase through their membership number. Kathy thought it was three years ago and member services started looking there and worked their way back.
2) Based upon our experience, I believe the only items not covered by their generous return policy are electronics (computers, TV's, etc) and they publish a specific policy for these items.

I am unsure what their Mexico policies are.

I worked a mile from the Pentagon. When it got hit on 9/11, the nearby Costco store let first-reponders and local government have free access to anything in the store that was needed (the store was closed to the public for weeks, as were other nearby businesses). Costco kept the food court open for the emergency crews (free of charge).

Costco never publicized what they did, and few people know about their contribution during this sad event.

CheenaGringo wrote:To clarify a few things:
1) There was no receipt necessary since Costco tracks every customer purchase through their membership number. Kathy thought it was three years ago and member services started looking there and worked their way back.
2) Based upon our experience, I believe the only items not covered by their generous return policy are electronics (computers, TV's, etc) and they publish a specific policy for these items.

I am unsure what their Mexico policies are.

Aren't Mexico policies usually different for each store chain?

John:

Through the years, I have read varying and conflicting accounts on the handling of returns in various Costco stores throughout Mexico. I think that there is more involvement by the store managers in Mexico with returns. Could be that their performance ratings have a returns factor? I do remember going into the original Guadalajara Costco shortly after they bought out the Price Club stores in Mexico and it was evident that there was a reeducation to the Costco culture happening.

binky wrote:I worked a mile from the Pentagon. When it got hit on 9/11, the nearby Costco store let first-reponders and local government have free access to anything in the store that was needed (the store was closed to the public for weeks, as were other nearby businesses). Costco kept the food court open for the emergency crews (free of charge).

Costco never publicized what they did, and few people know about their contribution during this sad event.

In the US Costco pays it employees better than other stores,they sell prescription drugs at cost and when they felt that Coca Cola was gouging their customers they stopped selling it,those are some of their policies that I like.

I wouldn´t bet on Costco Mexico following Costco U.S. return policies. That´s why I believe any accolades paid Costco in the U.S. should include the caveat that Costco Mexico is a Mexican corporation with joint ownership between Costco in the U.S. and its Mexican corporate partner(s) since that´s the way things are done down here. Costco Mexico´s return policy may be very different from that followed in the U.S.

While I do not mean to compare Walmart with Costco since I know virtually nothing about Costco and never shop there, when we arrived down here in 2001, we bought an expensive large screen SONY T.V. at Walmart in Galerias Plaza and had it delivered to our home in Ajijic where it promply ceased to function within the first week we owned it. We immediately went back to Walmart with the just-issued receipt and requested that they replace it with another like T.V. set. They absolutely and, I might add, curtly, refused and told us that our problem was SONY´s problem and not their´problem so we should complain to SONY which, as we had no choice, we proceeded to do. We were new in Mexico and had expected, foolishly as it turned out, to be treated as we would have expected to have been treated in any large mega-store in the U.S. where we would have expected that the store immediately and courteously replace the obviously defective and very expensive (at the equivalent of $1,300 USD in 2001) television.

When we approached SONY, we learned even more about what living in our newly adopted country was going to be like. In those days we had to approach a SONY repair shop in Guadalajara who, within a week or so, picked up the television set and took it to their shop up there. It turns out that a part they called a "transformer" or something like that, had failed immediately upon use and needed replacement.

It gets even better. Since, according to the SONY service manager, these parts never fail, much less immediately upon purchase, they had to send off to Mexico City for a replacement part and we waited and waited for them to get that part here in Mexico and nothing happened. No one would admit that Mexico is the land of "no inventory" and that everywhere they looked here in Mexico there was not even one replacement "transformer". SONY in Mexico City kept telling SONY in Guadalajara that they could expect the new part at any time and Guadalajara dared not call Mexico City´s bluff because that is not the way things are done in Mexico. Well, to make a long story short, it turns out, (and Mexico City never admitted this), that they had to requisition a new part from the manufacturer in Japan. It took over six months to get that part which, of couse, had to be shipped (probably by slow freighter) from Japan to Mexico City and then trans-shipped to Guadalajara where the T.V. was finally repaired and sent back to us in Ajijic some seven months after we approached Walmex requesting they replace the defective television set they had just sold us.

Mexico ain´t New Mexico.

We would not dream of ever buying any large appliance from Walmart anywhere in Mexico ever again. Your experience may differ and its seems to be just the luck of the draw but don´t presume that, just because CG´s New Mexico experience with a mega-store was so refreshing, yours here in Old Mexico will be as well. I know nothing about Costco as I stated above so can´t speak to the subject of buying at Costco in Mexico but - buyer beware whereever you invest in expensive apliances. at any large store or small store for that matter. Don´t automatically expect great service if you buy a lemon.

Costco is a "no problem" return store. We're done it several times. No hassle.
Walmart is another story. We bought an item at their Guadalajara store and it wasn't right, so we took it to returns locally and they refused to accept it, saying we had to take it back to the store where we bought it.
Brrrraaaack!

gringal wrote:Costco is a "no problem" return store. We're done it several times. No hassle.
Walmart is another story. We bought an item at their Guadalajara store and it wasn't right, so we took it to returns locally and they refused to accept it, saying we had to take it back to the store where we bought it.
Brrrraaaack!

Don´t be surprised if that trip to Guadalajara to replace that item at the Walmart where you bought it because "...it wasn´t right.", doesn´t result in instant gratification when you approach the returns desk there. Plan on some other reason to combine with this experience in Guadalajara such as a pleasant dinner in the city so, after the Walmart experience, you can have something upbeat to look forward to and at least come home pleasantly satiated if a bit drowsy.

Dawg,eleven years here and you've never been to Costco????

So, Dawg's comment on being obligated to return an item to the store where you bought it so you can enjoy a pleasant outing in Guadalajara (and an outlay of time and gas) could be expanded to include the necessity of taking a Walmart product you bought anywhere else back to its purchase place? You know, like a pleasant outing to Mexico City, perhaps?
Walmart's return policy stinks. Period. No excuse. Costco's creates good customer relations.

[quote="viajero"]Dawg,eleven years here and you've never been to Costco????[/quote]

Well OK, we used to go there to buy good quality beef when we first got here but that´s about it. Once we got into the San Cristóbal home refurbishment project in 2006, which became a time consuming affair way down there, we have seldom shopped in Guadalajara, especially since retail selections at Lakeside have improved so much over when we arrived here. Back in 2001, shopping trips to Guadalajara were more common for us and essential for certain things - not including television sets at Walmart as it turned out. In San Cristóbal, there is a Sam´s Club, Bodega Aurrera and Chedraui but I don´t believe there is a Costco in all of Chiapas - even in Tuxtla Gutierrez so we haven´t had occasion to join.

By the way, CNBC aired a special program on Costco recently where the filmmakers posed the notion that Costco depends heavily on impulse buying among its members and the documentary producers contended that many shoppers invariably leave with far more "impulse" items that they had intended to buy and thus, on average, spend far more money than they had originally intended to spend. They contended that that is Costco´s game plan to increase profitability and they, as part of the documentary, interviewed severaI shopping "junkies" who claimed to be obsessed with overbuying there. I don´t know if that´s true and am simply parroting whet the documentary said but that reminds me of that famous Seinfeld episode where Kramer went to the old Price Club and came home with something like a five year supply of cans of "Beef-a-Roni" because it was such a good deal and ended up feeding it to his horse.

While we are unlikely to join Costco since there is not one in Chiapas and we spend half the year down there, Gringal´s comment about Costco Mexico´s return policy is noted and it is encouraging to hear that Costco down here follows the lead of Costco in the U.S. We´ll keep that in mind for future big ticket item purchases while at Lakeside. It would make sense to join for that return policy peace-of-mind and I, for one, appreciate the input.