Why Costco Deserves My Business

If you're a regular reader, you probably think I'm some kind of Costco fanboy since I'm always talking about good experiences with them. The thing is that they consistently prove that they deserve my dollar. I was a Sam's Club member for a few years, but they never really did anything that could draw me in. Essentially I showed them how much I thought of their business by voting with my wallet. I had no regrets when I purchased a Costco membership and sliced up my old Sam's Club card.

So what did Costco do this time? Well I basically got my membership paid for in savings on a new pair of glasses. I had a mishap at Six Flags New England because my glasses had a lens that liked to pop out at random times. I had them in a pocket of my shorts while I was riding the coasters, and when I went to pull my glasses out, the "David Copperfield" lens was gone and could not be found anywhere.

So the following Monday I headed to the local Costco because I had heard from others that they had the best prices on glasses. I ended up picking out a frame that was similar to my current ones. The guy at the counter helped me out tremendously as we discussed my options for lenses. I asked about Transitions lenses, but he actually steered me towards a less expensive option because the problem with Transitions is that they require UV rays to darken properly. I need my glasses to help see when driving, and since most windshields are tinted to reflect UV rays, the glasses would be unlikely to darken enough to be effective sunglasses as well. I ultimately went with polycarbonate lenses since they would offer UV protection and were lighter.

Now let's get down to price: The frames were $40, the lenses were $80 after adding the anti-glare tinting as well. So overall a new pair of glasses ran $120 from Costco, and this was without coupons or promotional pricing.

I dug up the receipt for my old pair of glasses, which had the same style of frame, and the exact same type of lenses and lens treatment. I paid about about $135 for those glasses, but that was after using a coupon. The real price of the glasses was $175, so overall I saved $55 by going to Costco rather than going through the process of finding which glasses store has the best coupons this month.

So once again Costco shows me why they deserve my business, especially when I can save a good chunk of change and not have to wait for a sale to be able to do it.