About a month ago I persuaded my boss to let me try out Costco business delivery.  All of these years I've been shopping in person for things like candy bars, rubber gloves, 10 pound cans of green beans and cases of Coca-Cola.   This kind of shopping takes up quite a bit of time, precious time that I really don't have to spend shopping.  I do actually enjoy spending time in Costco even if I'm not shopping for myself, but I can tell you those carts get really heavy when you've loaded up 10 cases of soda.

That didn't stop me.  But then a few things happened.  For some reason some of the candy bars we regularly purchase are no longer available in the “retail” Costco stores.  It was the Three Musketeers and the Peanut M&Ms, we could no longer buy them in bulk.  In order to buy the variety on our list, I was having to shop at another “warehouse” type store, taking even more time.   I don't know about your Costco stores, but ours don't open until 10am, so this was another problem.  I couldn't get there early in the morning before my day started, I had to go on the way home.  In the winter it's not so bad, but try buying 10 cases of soda and 8 boxes of chocolate candy bars during the summer. I couldn't just leave them in the car overnight, the candy bars would have melted and cans of soda would have exploded! How do I know this?  Yes, you guessed it, it actually happened to me before. What a mess!

Last summer my air conditioning  in my car stopped working and that just made things worse because I have an hour drive home and I didn't want to risk melting the chocolate candy bars so I was having to leave work early, do the shopping, then come back to work and hope someone was around to help me unload and stock everything.

More Variety of Business Type Purchases

Finally I decided to ask someone at Costco about the candy bars, and why they weren't stocking the variety they had for years.  Apparently there is a low demand for 48 packs of candy bars, so the guy told me I would need to shop at the business Costco, which was on the other side of town (more time and gasoline wasted).  He then mentioned that I could probably find everything I was looking for online at the business Costco.

Delivery Fee For Orders Under $250

When I got to work the next day I told my boss, and she gave me permission to check it out. Our first delivery we weren't really prepared to order, and found that because our order was under $250 (before tax), we would have to pay $20 delivery fee. That's okay, we needed the products and I figured it was costing more than that in wages to run around and do the shopping in person, so we were saving even in spite of the delivery fee.  The next time we ordered we knew to make sure we needed over $250 worth of products so we just started keeping a list of things that we needed and put in one big order.

You Must Be In An Area Zoned For Business/Commercial

One of the requirements is that you must be in a business area, or Costco will not deliver.  We have neighborhoods across the street and to the side of our building, but our corner is considered to be a business area, so we qualified.  I think I had to answer a series of similar questions twice while putting in my order that we were in a commercial area.  I asked the man who delivered our order and he said it was because of insurance purposes, and of course the big trucks need room to turn around.

Handy Shopping List for Future Orders

I am also taking advantage of the shopping list option at Costco business.   As businesses usually do, we tend to buy the same things, so I just add them to my shopping list as I order. This way the next time I need to order I can go to my shopping list and check off the items we need and add them to the cart. It will take a lot less time then doing it in person.

Business Membership Required for Delivery

I learned that any Costco member can shop at the Business Costco stores; however, you must have a valid business membership to qualify for delivery from the Business Costco store.  I can't imagine a typical person needing to buy 8 cases of candy bars or soda anyway.

No More Lug and Load and Wear and Tear

Another bonus for me is I don't have to lug those big carts through the store with several hundred pounds of product.  The delivery guy has a nice automatic pallet jack with a truck and a lift gate and he just rolls the loaded pallet right close to the kitchen door and brings it all right into the kitchen for us. There are some qualifications in this regards as well: delivery areas must be at least five feet wide, they will not use stairs, an elevator must be available if the delivery is not on the ground floor.

Now I just need to start looking at not only our kitchen supplies that we use, but also office supplies that we can buy in bulk. We already buy our batteries from Costco, and I think I've seen some pretty good prices on reams of copy paper.

Have you ever had the opportunity to use the Costco Business Store?