The Sam's Club Membership Perk Costco Can't Pull Off

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There are two types of bulk shoppers out there: Costco members and Sam's Club members. Both get some serious perks that come with shopping at a big box store, including high-quality groceries at wholesale prices, a daily lineup of major deals, and the ability to load up on family-sized essentials that reduce the frequency of restock runs. But when it comes to whether Costco or Sam's Club is a better investment, there are some key differences that may make one or the other more worth your while.

If you prefer to skip long, in-person shopping trips (and all the impulse purchases they inevitably incur), Sam's Club might have you sold based on the fact that it offers curbside pickup. Sam's Club launched the super convenient membership perk nationwide back in 2020. The process is easy; you simply order your items online or via the Sam's Club app, set the date and time of your pickup, then pull up to a designated parking area and wait for your haul — which, better yet, will be loaded right into your vehicle by an employee.

Although subject to availability, most of the store's items can be purchased via pickup, from groceries (including frozen items, which they'll keep cold for you) to homewares to electronics and pharmacy items. You can even choose a grab-and-go option for Sam's Club's beloved hot baked pizza pie, meaning you can drive away with a month's worth of groceries and tonight's dinner without ever leaving your car.

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If curbside pickup is one of the ways Sam's Club outshines Costco, why doesn't the competing retailer simply adopt it, too? Well, there are a few potential reasons Costco hasn't jumped on the curbside bandwagon. One of them is the possibility of missing out on revenue from the impulse buys we mentioned above. Those come from customers wandering the aisles. As former Costco CFO Richard Galanti explained in an interview with CNN Business back in 2020, "We want you to walk the warehouse and see what we have to offer." 

Then there's the issue of space. Despite Costco stores' huge footprint, those warehouses apparently don't have a lot of backroom space to keep a bunch of pickup orders waiting around. "You have to have a place to store the stuff," Galanti explained. "You can't store it at room temperature. You've got to separate it into refrigerated, frozen, and dry." Plus, given how busy the average Costco store is every day, it would likely require hiring more staff to shop, package, and organize those online purchases. 

While Sam's Club has managed to successfully pull it off, the extra space, manpower, and money that the company would have to allocate to a curbside pickup program simply doesn't seem to be a cost effective option for Costco. However, customers can enjoy the convenience of same-day delivery with Instacart or two-day delivery for non-perishable items — they'll just have to wait at home rather than in their cars.