>I like what Costco is doing, instead of just recycling the boxes, they are left for people to carry their purchases.
This is really interesting. Growing up in Southern California, I remember always getting free boxes from Costco like this.
But for the past 15 years I've lived in the Bay Area, I can't say I've ever seen boxes readily offered- even to other people in the store. Maybe these locations are just so busy they run out quickly.
> Maybe these locations are just so busy they run out quickly.
I kept thinking about this while shopping at Costco. The thing is, all the boxes that the products are shipped into Costco should be enough to send products from Costco to final consumers. There will be some inefficiencies in how shoppers pack their boxes, and also people taking more boxes because they need them for moving or something, but also there are people taking less boxes, or over-packing some boxes. All in all, I think a balance can be kept by the nature of the process itself, and it seems that way by studying my local Costco.
If a location is not doing that, it's probably intentional rather than a lack of enough boxes. Maybe they don't have enough floor space to store them? Maybe they are getting a very good deal on recycling?
I haven’t driven in a year so maybe it’s changed but the Mountain View costco always offered boxes if you had a lot of purchases. The number of people doing what appears to be instacart or other company shopping for customers has skyrocketed during first year of Covid so those delivery services might be using many of the boxes they previously tried to give to customers.
This is really interesting. Growing up in Southern California, I remember always getting free boxes from Costco like this.
But for the past 15 years I've lived in the Bay Area, I can't say I've ever seen boxes readily offered- even to other people in the store. Maybe these locations are just so busy they run out quickly.