Comments on: The Costco Effect

By: auto traffic avalanche

auto traffic avalanche — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:37:08 +0000

This may sound strange but I have never been to Costco. I’ve always been to Sam’s club which predominates here in the south (TN). About the parking things, one thing is for sure, we have not stopped spending no matter if parking is limited or unlimited.

By: Dolores Carey

Dolores Carey — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:09:01 +0000

If you measure the size of Costco parking spaces, you will find them larger. (”Costco Sized”)
You car is unlikely to be nicked or scratched by a fellow shopper loading their purchases into their vehicle.

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:06:22 +0000

I cannot speak specifically for Costco, but a few things to note:

1) Typically big-box retailers have a standard parking rate that they want to achieve. Usually this is large enough that at most stores (if not all) there will always be parking available, preferably at least 10-15% of spaces will be vacant. Occasionally they will try and argue for lower parking rates, either because the rate specified in the municipal by-law is outrageously high, or because they have a constrained site and they can’t fit the municipally required parking (but presumably they can meet their corporate standard rate).

2) The article says the Culver City store is one of the busiest (for example, because of a high density of population within its trade area). Even if Costco is designing for most stores to have sufficient parking, there will be outliers that may be at or slightly above parking capacity.

3) There is a difference between “not having any parking” and “not having any parking within, say, 200 feet of the entrance”. A lot of time, people say the former when they really mean the latter, and in that case it doesn’t matter if you add more parking because the additional parking is usually even less convenient and goes unused.

4) Related to the above, Costco is different from other major big box chains (Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe’s etc.) in that they seem to like to have the entrance/exit in the corner of the store, rather than in the centre of the front. In theory, this should permit more spaces within a certain radius of the entrance, but it does not always work that cleanly. In the Culver City site, for example, part of this radius is taken up by an adjacent store. This can make parking appear to be more constrained or lead to it being used inefficiently.

5) There are plenty of other things that make shopping at Costco (or Ikea, or Wal-Mart supercentres for that matter) a pain in the ass even if parking is not an issue… having to trek around a 120,000-foot store and sit in line at the cashier, to name a couple examples. It has to be worth my time and effort to go to Costco rather than a smaller store that is more convenient to get to and shop at — and that usually means large purchases. If most Costco shoppers are of that frame of mind, it becomes a self-fulling — longer time to check out and longer cashier queues, and lower parking turnover leading to more crowded parking.

By: Victoria Gerken

Victoria Gerken — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:09:55 +0000

Love Costco. Huge parking lots in Colorado so never a problem getting a spot. Sometimes they run out of chicken salad but that’s maybe a complaint for a different blog . . .

By: Vincent Clement

Vincent Clement — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:48:01 +0000

As an urban planner, I have always believed that instead of requiring a minimum number of parking spaces, we should be limiting parking by having a maximum number of parking spaces.

Our Official Plan encourages public transit and other alternative means of travel (ie, walking and bicycles) but our zoning by-law continues to mandate minimum parking, even in areas where it makes no sense.

People will adjust their habits.

By: John

John — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:07:43 +0000

Tom, loved the book. Also love Costco. It sounds like Costco understands its customers very well - they don’t want the occasional visitor who just needs one box of cereal to clog up the lines. Could part of the attraction also be the apparent allure of being somewhere that also looks attractive to others? For example, I hesitate to go to restaurants that have very few cars in the lot. On the other side, even though the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, is crowded, it seems as if the crowds are drawing even more people. Maybe people see full parking lots and crowded spaces as exciting - everyone else is here, let’s party!