The Smart Shopper's Blog: Warehouse Shopping Clubs

Welcome to the Smart Shopper's Blog! This blog will help you find the best deals available both online and offline. This first post will be about warehouse shopping clubs.

There are two Warehouse shopping clubs available in my area, BJ's and Costco. I recently became a member of Costco a few weeks ago, but also recently got a free trial offer to BJ's Warehouse club in the mail around the same time. Since most folks aren't members to both of these clubs, I figured that I'd compare the two and find out which one is the best deal.

I started with a shopping list of some items that I regularly use, and added a few extra items just for sake of comparison. Here are the items that I put on my list:

A 32 bottle variety pack of flavored bottled water
A 24 pack of diet shakes
A 12 pack of Starbucks Frappchino drinks
A 24/32 pack of toilet paper
87 Octane Gas
A 12 pack of Hot Pockets
A "big" bottle of Head&Shoulders shampoo
An 8 pack of 13 Watt (60 Watt equivalent) compact fluorescent light bulbs
And just for fun, a 32" Sony 720p HDTV.

Going to BJ's, this is what I found:

BJ's Warehouse Club: $45 a year membership, with "day pass" and 2 month free trial offers available.

A 32 bottle variety pack of flavored bottled water: Nestle LifeWater, 16.9oz. $8.99
A 24 pack of diet shakes: SlimFast Optima, $24.99. Over $1 a can? I'm not impressed.
A 12 pack of Starbucks Frappchino drinks: Not available at this location.
A 24/32 pack of toilet paper: Cheapest that I found was a 30 pack of Charmin with 350 sheets per roll for $12.99. That's 10,500 sheets at about 8 sheets for a penny. Not bad.
87 Octane Gas: $3.199 per gallon
A 12 pack of Hot Pockets: $9.99
A "big" bottle of Head&Shoulders shampoo: 40oz for $9.49
An 8 pack of 13 Watt (60 Watt equivalent) compact fluorescent light bulbs: $3.99 after $8 "instant rebate". Just 50 cents a bulb for CFL's is a great deal!
32" Sony 720p HDTV: $949, $899 after $50 "instant rebate"

Here are the results for Costco on the next day:

Costco Wholesale Club: $50 a year basic membership, with no free trial offers available. BJ's wins easily on basic membership options. Both stores offer premium membership options with cash back offers as well, but I didn't look into these for this review.

A 32 bottle variety pack of flavored bottled water: Nestle LifeWater, 16.9oz. $8.99. Tie with BJ's.
A 24 pack of diet shakes: Kirkland brand, $15.49. They do not offer Slim Fast brand shakes like BJ's does, but the Kirkland brand shakes are quite good. I'm giving the win to Costco on this one.
A 12 pack of Starbucks Frappchino drinks: $14.99. Not a great deal, but Costco wins by default on this one since BJ's doesn't carry them.
A 24/32 pack of toilet paper: The best deal was a 36 pack of 425 sheet Kirkland "embossed" toilet paper rolls for $16.99. That's 15,300 sheets of toilet paper, or 1 penny for every 9 sheets. This is good toilet paper as well (it's a lot like Angel Soft) and is a better deal than BJ's. I'm not sure if I need an 18 month supply of toilet paper, though :)
87 Octane Gas: $3.199 per gallon (same as BJ's)
A 12 pack of Hot Pockets: No 12 pack, but they had a 17 pack for $11.99. That's a better deal than BJ's by about 12 cents per Hot Pocket.
A "big" bottle of Head&Shoulders shampoo: $9.99 for 40 oz. BJ's beat this price by 50 cents.
An 8 pack of 13 Watt (60 Watt equivalent) compact fluorescent light bulbs: No 8 packs, but they had a 10 pack of generic brand bulbs for $9 after a $5 dollar energy saver rebate. Not bad, but not nearly as good as BJ's deal on CFL's.
32" Sony 720p HDTV: $899, just like BJ's.

Price-wise, I can't give a decisive win to either store. It seems that BJ's has better prices on some name brand items, but Costco beats BJ's prices if they have a store brand equivalent. Here are some other things that I noticed while shopping:

Costco closes at 6 PM on Saturdays. BJ's is open around this time, although the food court is closed and there none of the famous "sample ladies" are around. Costco's food court has great deals on food items, like a hot dog and soda special for only $1.50. BJ's food court prices seemed as good as well, but not quite as good as Costco's.

Both of these stores sell basically the same brand name items for most products, although Costco's store is larger and offers a slightly wider selection. Both stores also have their own "house brands"... Costco sells Kirkland products, and BJ's sells Berkeley & Jensen products. Both seem to be reasonably high quality, and compare favorably to the retail store brands.

I also noticed that Costco's bulk packaging seems to be even larger than BJ's on average. Keep that in mind if you have small closets and pantries and don't have room for that 5 quart jug of cooking oil instead of the 3 quart jug that BJ's might offer. If you only have room for a 1 quart jug, you might want to stick with the grocery store.

All things considered, I do not see a reason why someone would want to belong to both warehouse clubs at the same time. If I had to pick between the two, I'd recommend giving BJ's three month trial membership a try before ultimately signing up for a Costco membership.