I first wrote about Costco way back in August 2009, but I wasn’t brave enough to be part of the first rush of people to visit. But after the crush of early crowds died down, I finally got around to seeing first hand whether the fuss is justified. It’s not as if I haven’t been to one of these before; on a trip to Canada many years ago I visited a similar monstrosity, and brought back a box of Hershey’s Cookies and Cream chocolate bars that I doled out to my friends. It might be a revelation for Australia, but it’s nothing on what they’ve got over across the Pacific.

The selection was underwhelming, although it would be unfair to compare it to the American versions – their plethora of choice and hyperconsumption is not an ideal we should be aspiring to. Things that I found cheap:

• Junk food. Oh my lord, you can buy this stuff for mere cents per kilo. I walked away with no less than a 1.8Kg tub of Jelly Belly jellybeans, a kilo bag of Bhuja Mix, enough breath mints to undo the effects of eating out at Korean restaurant for a year, and 2 massive bags of Rice Crackers.
• Frozen goods. Bacon shortcuts that cost about $15+ a kilo at the supermarkets went for about $10 a kilo, and likewise cheese, dim sims, chips, ice cream, etc.

Things that are about the same as, or worse than, supermarkets:

• Fresh food. Loaves of Helgas bread worked out to be $3.50 per loaf, which is more expensive that at the supermarkets, which normally sell them for $6.50 for 2 (and often less, at $5 or $6) every other week. Meat is cheaper at the butchers in a busy area, say, the Chinese side in Eastwood and fruit and veg were pretty ordinary as well.
• Gadgets. The selection of electronics and their prices were underwhelming.

On that pet topic of mine: their kitchen paper towels are pretty excellent – good, tough sheets that are absorbent and can even withstand having the water wrung out of them. Their bathroom tissue, on the other hand, is atrocious. The Kirkland 2-ply tissues are thin and tear easily.

In saying I couldn’t find much to buy, I still managed to drop over $200 there, so they must be doing something right. It’s not a place I’d go to do my shopping regularly though – if only for the sake of my waistline. Maybe once or twice a year or on special occasions.

One of the more curious phenomena on the Internet bargain scene is the proliferation of “daily deal” Web sites. The premise is usually that each day a new item, or sometimes several items, is offered. These are usually significantly cheaper than their regular retail price and have limited availability.

They offer a wide variety of products, ranging from clothes, electronics, perfumes, toys, sporting memorabilia and occasionally even mystery items – lucky-dip style. Many of the products are mass-produced goods sourced from low-cost countries, and I reckon that most of the “limited offer” items are end-of-life or overstocked items that wholesalers and manufacturers couldn’t get rid of through retail, but you do find the occasional gem: for example, around Christmas last year, Catch of the Day offered the 120GB version of the Playstation 3 console for $399 plus shipping, which in conjunction with a Paypal $50 cashback, resulted in a price that has yet to be matched anywhere else on or offline.

If you’re a keen bargain hunter, it pays to keep an eye on these sites:

• Catch of the day (http://www.catchoftheday.com.au)
• Zazz (http://www.zazz.com.au)
• One day, three deals (http://www.1-day.com.au)

With the Aussie Dollar currently trading at a 25-year high against the Pound Stirling, it’s the perfect time to grab a bargain. Here are a few places you’ll want to check out:

Book Depository
For seasoned Internet shoppers, the Book Depository would probably have been the first place that came to mind. Offering prices cheaper than almost anywhere else on- or off-line, and with free international shipping, it’s a popular destination for book lovers and students alike.

Amazon UK
Everybody knows about its brother in the US, but Amazon also has a presence in other countries (including Japan and China). Not just for books, Amazon also sells a variety of homewares, clothes and electronics, but can be expensive to ship.

CD Wow
Music and movie lovers need go no further. Although you can shop at CD Wow using Australian Dollars, you may find that with the current exchange rate that it’s cheaper to pay in Pounds. CD Wow has an excellent range of CDs, DVDs and video games, and like Book Depository, includes free shipping.

Zavvi
Zavvi is similar to Amazon or CD Wow in that it sells entertainment products, however they have arguably the best bargains for video games, with frequent deep discounts on popular titles.

One last thing, a few words of advice: if you’re buying DVDs, make sure that your DVD player can play discs from other regions first – a lot of older machines are still locked to playing Region 4 discs only. Lastly, don’t forget that the bank will charge you a currency conversion fee when using your credit card to pay, so remember to factor that into the final price.

Are there any good UK sites that I haven’t mentioned here? Share them with everybody in the comments!

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Coles and Woolies have started introducing per-unit pricing. That is, the price tag for products won’t just show how much the product costs, it’ll also show in smaller print how much it costs according to a standard unit of measure.

For example, for a 500g jar of Brand A peanut butter costs $6.49, and the price tag also shows you that it costs $1.30 per 100g. This becomes useful when you start comparing different sizes in the same product range. Say the 200g jar of the same brand peanut butter costs $2.99, but because that works out to be $1.50 per 100g it means that the smaller jar is more expensive in terms of bang-for-buck. It’s also useful for comparing prices between different brands, as well as figuring out whether discounted prices are really all that special.

Unit pricing has been standard practice at Aldi, and European supermarkets in general, for a long time. Australian retailers have been slow to adopt it though, due to disagreement between the major parties about how things are measured. Chief amongst their concerns is what constitutes a “standard unit”, because not all products are equal.

Take toilet paper rolls for instance (my pet topic) – because not all rolls from all brands are the same, should you give the price per roll or per sheet? You have 2, 3 and even 4-ply tissues now, with 190 sheets per roll or 200 sheets per roll. Which measure, from sheets, rolls or even weight, is the most relevant information to help customers make a choice?

That aside, unit pricing is otherwise a very useful tool to help you shop economically.

Yesterday my wife and I went to Birkenhead Point, where we paid $200 for something that used to cost $420 at retail. It was from the designer’s winter range, but because her spring collection is already out it’s considered out of date, and winter isn’t even over yet! (Although we have been having some unusually warm weather in Sydney lately.)

If you’re not after the absolute latest styles (but without sacrificing fashionability!) then it pays to shop at factory outlets. You can get perfectly good stuff at significantly-less-than-retail prices. If you’re lucky you might even find something in one of the seconds shops that you can fix simply with a bit of glue, a quick bit of sewing, or even just a bit of a wash.

Here’s a couple of factory outlet franchises that have branches in most capital cities:

Harbourtown
DFO

For everywhere else, the Factory Outlet Directory site has a pretty comprehensive list of Factory Outlets in Australia.

Happy bargain hunting!

For discussion: what’s the best bargain that you’ve ever picked up at a factory outlet?