Top electronics to buy (and skip) at Costco and Sam’s Club

If you’re following our ongoing saga dedicated to investigating Costco and Sam’s Club for electronics, you may think that we’re under the impression that all electronics are best purchased at these warehouse stores. That’s not the case. There are some categories of products that tend to be great to buy at these stores and others that you should avoid. Here, we’re aiming to provide a comprehensive warehouse club electronics buying guide, so you can stick to the good stuff and avoid the duds. We’re hitting all the major product categories and things you’ll see, with some helpful tips and notes along the way.

Best buys categories

So, what are the best electronics to buy at Costco? What about the best electronics to buy at Sam’s Club? While you can find good deals on electronics throughout these and other warehouse stores, some categories are just better than others, plain and simple. Here are the electronics categories that we think you should spend extra time on when shopping at Costco and Sam’s Club.

TVs (large screen)

TVs and large screen TVs are some of the smartest electronics buys at Costco and Sam’s Club. Bulk purchasing power on these (often) mass-produced goods result in competitive pricing. Plus, a larger TV is often right at the price point where you start to need to get whatever discounts on them you can get.

But, it’s trickier than that and worth a deeper look.

Most makes of TVs have several models, with different sizes and (sometimes) subtly different features. Once you get the base technology, UI, and software/hardware combo just right, making TVs in different sizes is apparently not nearly as giant as a leap as you might expect it to be. Unfortunately, each model also comes with a sort of minimum acceptable price — a price that retailers can’t go below. However, we’ve found that warehouse retailers can pass along special savings by requesting unique warehouse models just for them in exchange for buying mass quantities of said models. Then, you can get some of those savings passed along to you. When it works right, it is a win-win-win scenario. And while, obviously, this kind of deal can work with any product, it is just especially noticeable for TVs due to the (already) large number of models that each line uses.

Smart home devices (bundles and kits)

Smart home devices that include cameras, Wi-Fi extenders, and home security tend to come in bundles. Those bundles can give you bigger savings. For example, as we browse we currently see some quality Reolink bundles. Checking Amazon, we see that similar bundles with roughly equivalent stats are more expensive. That being said, don’t immediately slam the breaks on good old Amazon — we’re largely finding different bundles, they just have similar stats and camera numbers and come from the same brand. But, when you compare two sets of eight security cameras from the same brand, both with 12MP cameras and 4TB of storage, a $450 price differential is a big deal.

The bottom line here is that there is the potential to pay significantly less at a warehouse store. But it isn’t quite the same as TVs. If you seek true clarity on a dollar per value gained perspective, you’ll have to do deeper research.

Accessories (Cables, batteries, etc.)

Costco and Sam’s Club may buy things in corporate level bulk, but you can buy from them in family level bulk and still get great savings. This can be especially convenient on things like batteries, wires, and cables that you buy a lot of at one time and are relatively tiny (i.e. you won’t need to take up garage space storing them all). As an example, we’re seeing a 40 pack of Duracell AA Power Boost batteries is $12 cheaper at Costco than the competition. If you have a Costco or Sam’s Club membership and need some small, consumable thing like this, it is always worth giving a quick search on the site to see what is available.

Categories to be cautious of

Even if you agree with us that Costco and Sam’s Club are excellent for electronics, it doesn’t mean that you should go blindly forth and buy everything that you see. As a result, this half of our warehouse retailer electronics guide is dedicated to the electronics to avoid at Costco and the electronics to skip at Sam’s Club.

High-end, specialty electronics

One of the big advantages of warehouse stores is their potential to distribute savings to you that they get from gigantic bulk buys. High-end and specialty items don’t have that bulk, so probably won’t get that advantage. Be cautious here.

Popular consumer tech (headphones, laptops, etc.)

You might’ve come into this just assuming that you’d be able to find better deals on an Asus Vivobook or pair of Bose headphones with no problem at Costco or Sam’s Club. This was the base assumption we started with, too. However, as the search was on, finding products that matched up with brands and the same processors, RAM, and storage (product names alone don’t always tell the full story due to the way products are labelled for Amazon success, for instance), we found that finding the best deal on a warehouse site was not easy.

There were many times in the search that I’d get excited for a moment — “Oh, the Vivobook 15 here is even cheaper than the one on the Asus website!” — only to keep looking and comparing and find some critical stat was way different. There always seemed to be a better or equivalent price elsewhere, and the number of times that something looked like it had a great price at a warehouse store but was on sale at a place like Best Buy for even lower was way too high. Even marked down items often struggled to make a case for themselves as a clearly superior buy at the warehouse store.

This all being said, we don’t think you should skip Costco or Sam’s Club altogether for these items. If the price is equivalent, that can actually bend in your favor if you’re getting 2% back from your membership card, for example. At the end of the day, for many product categories your Costco, Sam’s Club, or other warehouse retailer is just that, another retailer — not a magical dispensary of cheaper goods.

Conclusion

Be sure to always check the price differences between Costco, Sam’s Club, and other stores. Just because you’re a member, it doesn’t mean you should ignore Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and brand sites altogether. Keep your due diligence high. As we begin to introduce Costco and Sam’s Club deals into our regular coverage, we’ll do the same.