Don't Tell Anyone Else But...
I actually bought a garment of clothing at BJ's.
Pretty much everything I swore I would never ever do in life I have done at this point, so I am never going to swear off anything again. Well, these yoga pants were so great, I actually went back to buy a few more pairs in other colors, and they were 50% off, so I got a bunch. This is definitely not an overall endorsement for wholesale club clothes (though I do have some Kirkland cashmere sweaters from Costco), but if you look carefully, I must admit, there could be a diamond in the rough!
We left BJ's for almost a year because we got fed up that products advertised in the fliers were never available at any nearby club. Multiple emails to customer service, and even the local district manager, proved fruitless, so we were done. They sent us a steep discount offer on membership, and we decided a membership that low was worth it for the very limited (like 6x/year) visits we wanted to make.
Wellsley Farms organic products remain plentiful, available on everything from tomato paste, to sugar, to quinoa, and of good quality. For smoothie makers like us, their frozen fruit availability is hit or miss, but I've moved on to Costco to reliably (and more cheaply) supply that. Frozen organic veggies, generic allergy meds, baby formula, sheep/goat feta, organic butter, Scott TP, and Wellsley Farms econo paper towels (which are actually more luxe than the high-end Bounty stuff), are our current staples at BJ's. Some decent imported products from Ireland (Kerrygold), Spain (Citterio), and Greece (Mevgal) are very reasonably priced. It appears they are introducing more and more unique and/or imported, products each time we visit, which is a plus.
Occasionally, there will be a decent deal on something else, like the tricked-out snow shovel I bought a couple years ago, high quality car washing equipment (that was used, very successfully, to wash our house windows), or the abovementioned yoga pants, but I always Google prices on any unknowns before purchasing. Often Amazon has a better deal, or a better version of the product for a comparable price. Also, account for your gas and time. For example, there was a decent 55" 4K TV deal around the holidays, but they conveniently ran out of stock online, which meant you'd have to drive to the club to pick up. For $10 more, a competitor offered the same model with free shipping to my door, so why waste time buying this at BJ's?
Each time I go to leave BJ's, they come up with something new to draw me back. For now it's okay, but they've lost my trust, and I have back-up sources for the stuff I need to get the family fed, because a home can't stop when BJ's fails to get their act together. So, despite the positives, three stars for unreliability. read more