Most people know about BJ’s. The general idea of their store seems to be
to sell high quality items in large quantities for low prices. What I found with BJ’s is that they don’t
always have the best prices. For
example, when I was shopping for coffee, I saw that BJ’s often had a larger
size, but pound for pound, the coffee was not necessarily a really good tasting
brand or even the best price. The best
coffee for the best price is available at the Christmas Tree Shop. Likewise, when I looked around at BJ’s I
found several items that were priced higher, which got me wondering: If BJ’s sells in bulky larger sizes, is there
real mission to actually conceal the comparison of their price with that of a
store that sells more common sizes?
To be sure, I like buying things in bulk. I go to the store when I have to, and when I
do I like to get all the shopping done once a month. Realistically, it seems I am hardly ever able
to do this. There is always something I
have to return to buy, but that is off subject.
Despite the fact that BJ’s doesn’t always have the best prices, I don’t
know of any one store that does. For example,
the last time I was at Wal-Mart, I thought that the prices where outrageously
high on much of their electrical equipment.
At the heart of capitalism is a cruel idea
that everyone should always try to get the best price. However, what one usually finds is that
throwing money at something doesn’t necessarily make it higher quality. In fact, by my estimate, the high quality and
price are barely correlated. What it
comes down to is value. The Christmas
Tree Shop could sell me an obscure brand of coffee for $4.99, while BJ’s
inexpensive coffee was $13 for twice as much.
That’s $3 dollars I could save, and I might be willing to pay BJ’s the
extra cash if the item was higher quality, but it wasn’t. In fact, according to my taste buds, it was
lower quality. However, on the pasta
sauce BJ’s seemed to have the best price going for the highest quality sauce.
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