Well that’s that. Costco will no longer sell Apple products including iTunes gift cards. Why you ask? Great question, friend and let me answer that with a question. Who sells the iPad: Sam’s Club or Costco? Sam’s Club, right? That clearly didn’t sit very well with the Costco suits so they decided to cut Apple completely. Plus it probably didn’t help that Apple never allowed Costco to sell Apple products online even at their full retail price. Seeing how Costco is the third largest retailer in the States and the largest memership warehouse retailer, Sam’s Club comes in second, this is sort of a big deal. → Read More
When I came to the U.S. in 1980, I was young and naïve. I used to think that corruption and ethical lapses were just a third-world ill. Eventually, I became a tech CEO and learned the harsh realities of American business. Yes, standards are much higher, and breaches are punished, but the temptations are just the same here as they are in any other country. Ethical lapses (which are a form of corruption) are quite common. You watch stories about these on TV every other day and read about them on TechCrunch. It was the ethical lapses of our financial institutions that threw our economy into a tailspin, and for which we are paying the price, after all.
It is best to be aware of the temptations and to prevent the lapses from occurring. As Enron, Bernie Madoff, and Lehman Brothers have shown, it’s a slippery slope. Once you start compromising your values for short-term gains, there is no turning back. Business ethics are not something you need to start worrying about when your company reaches a certain size; they need to be sewn into the fabric of your startup from the get-go. The lessons are the same for tech businesses as they are for investment banks and for third-world economies. → Read More
Can you spell “patent troll”?
Software developer SpeedTrack has filed suit against nearly two dozen major online retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Overstock.com, Nike, Costco and Dell, accusing the major online retailers of infringing some patent that supposedly covers a search mechanism customers can use to locate products on their websites.
The complaint, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent Number 5,544,360, titled “Method for accessing computer files and data, using linked categories assigned to each data file record on entry of the data file record”. → Read More
It looks like the iPhone 3G is going to America’s favorite neighborhood store and warehouse retailer. The only thing is that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club minions will not be pimping the Jesusphone ’till after the holidays – like December 28th. It seems that select locations will get the phone first but eventually, the phone will be rolled out till the entire 2,500 store network. No word on pricing just yet, but perhaps it will drop $50 bucks which would coninside with the Costco reports. → Read More
Costco will have a three-day in-store sale from November 28-30 along with online-only deals from now until December 15th. These in-store deals look okay, but not great: SmartParts 10.4-inch digital picture frame for $99 Olympus FE-370 8-megapixel digital camera with 1GB SD card and case for $119 $100 to $300 off of various LCD TVs Magellan RoadMate 1212 GPS for $99 iHome iH27 iPod speaker dock for $49 SanDisk Sansa Fuze 8GB for $59 Here’s the full list of items and here are the scans of the ads. → Read More
A tech analyst is claiming that Costco is going to sell the Jesusphone for $149 starting in January. No other details were outlined so this statement is this will definitely be filed in the ‘Rumor’ category but even if the discount warehouse does drop the price by 50 bones, that alone would not justify cell phone end times. → Read More
Costco is offering a $50 discount on AppleTVs in stores until the 23rd or 26th of this month depending on who you ask. Considering the upcoming HD content coming to the little guy, you may want to invest in one now while it’s cheap. $50 instant rebate on Apple TV at Costco [AppleTV Source] → Read More
We’ve been seeing rumors all over the Internets today that Costco, the national chain of discount warehouses, might be offering the Apple TV at a price lower than Apple itself sells the set-top box for. Using our superior investigative journalism skills (read: a telephone), CrunchGear can now confirm that Costco is selling the Apple TV for $289.99. That’s $10 less than Apple or Target offers the unit for. Right now there are 20 in stock at all three Seattle-area Costcos, and most others nation-wide. If your neighborhood store doesn’t have them yet, just check back in a couple days, according to Sam from our own local branch. We’re not yet sure how Costco is going to show off the Apple TV, but hopefully better than Apple does in its own stores, where standard-definition content is played back pixelated on HDTVs. Seriously. → Read More
Long “celebrated” by consumers for its lenient return policies, CostCo has begun to feel burned by its nice guy persona. Customers have taken advantage of the policy to an unfair degree, returning ancient items in exchange for newer, fancier devices. Great for the customer, bad for business. In response, CostCo is cutting its open-ended return policy back to 90 days—which is still pretty damn good. It will also be extending the warranties on TVs and PCs for total of two years. And it will start a technical support hotline in order to provide assistance to frustrated consumers. While it sucks to see this go away, I really can’t complain. For starters, we don’t have CostCo in Louisiana, so it’s irrelevant to me. But, speaking reasonably, that return policy was shenanigans. A total money pit for the company and wholly unnecessary. Costco tightens return policy on electronics [MSNBC] → Read More
A wee bird told us that Costco is currently flush with PS3s and just waiting for you to come on over and join the Sony-cial. Interestingly enough, Costco’s website is currently hosed. Site → Read More
