Costco in France | How does it compare to the US?
Hey there we’re here in France on a crisp autumn morning uh it is raining very hard and we are going to French Costco see if there’s any difference between French and American Costco I don’t think so but we’re here today with my French cousin Seline and we’ll be arriving in looks
Like 1 hour also we’re going to be on a hunt for pumpkins if we have any so we are just outside of Paris and uh the Costco is actually quite far away um we started about 20 minutes ago and we still there 40 minutes to go okay so Seline who doesn’t want to
Talk in a video can okay uh that there is a the Costco that we’re going to was uh constructed near Disneyland and then there’s a second Costco so this in the south of Paris that was constructed 20 minutes away from the first Costco which is actually quite close in Parisian
Distance um when in fact it would make more sense to just build on L Costco on the other side of Paris in the north closer to where we are staying but uh that’s a question for Costco corporate so if you’re watching this video please provide us some
Answers okay so according to her there’s plenty of room in the north of Paris for an additional Costco so um the balls in nework court Costco France here’s some of the beautiful traffic that you see in the highway outside of Paris I’m staying with my family in
France and I wanted to share some American Autumn Traditions with them so we’re going to carve pumpkins for Halloween and make pumpkin pie if I can find those pumpkins as you can already see the parking lot is much smaller and we’re going to the underground Costco parking garage
On it’s nice snow there a big piece of America out here in France and we are inside okay at first glance everything looks oddly familiar oh we could buy starlink internet here now before we go further through the store and begin to compare prices there’s some key pieces of information
To understand about France um and a lot of this information is going to be common to most places outside of North America as well number one we need to know the exchange rate so at the time of this video the dollar and the Euro were pretty much at parody with one another
With the dollar being equal to 92 E cents or if you want to do the reverse conversion one Euro being equal to about $18 um so because they’re so close for all intents and purposes you can read the cost in euros and basically equate it to Dollars Point number two is that
Unlike the US and Canada the price you see on the price is the price you’re going to pay at the register and so the sales tax has already been factored into the price number three is that we need to understand what that sales tax is and
So if you look at sales tax in France uh which unlike the us or Canada again is a national system the standard consumption tax or you could think of as just a normal sales tax rate is 20% Which is going to cover most nonf food Goods in
This video and then the rate for food which will cover the groceries that we take a look at is going to be at 5.5 5% there are additional tax rates for things like Transportation gas other services Etc but they don’t concern us today now compared to my hometown of
Rochester New York um and in the US I do believe that the tax rate is done at the city or county level depending on where you are uh the local goods tax is 8% and we have an exemption on food tax uh so you can see that France is much higher
The flip side is that the population enjoys a greater degree of government services including Universal Health care so if we take this example of a 50 pack of big pens the 1339 already includes the 20% tax so if you’d like to do a price comparison with your own Costco
Make sure to include your local sales tax in the total price all right enough of that let’s go back to Costco they have samples just like in the US here’s the familiar Jewelry and Watch case that every Costco has of course the lines are always insanely long at Costco regardless of
Where you are in the world we begin our Costco journey in the snack section as you can see there’s a mixture of European snacks and some of the same exact items you would find in the US oh I got the Cheetos okay I’ve determined that French Cheetos taste different than American
Cheetos the coffee machines were all in this espresso or espresso machines which is unsurprising given local coffee drinking habits wa €43 for uh 250 Espresso capsules here’s a fake Christmas tree which is 3.6 M tall for the lowo price of €900 and even though it was only the end
Of October Christmas decorations were already on full display a Christmas Village for 160 a Mickey Mouse Christmas statue for only €1,000 this nutcracker for ,700 no Christmas is complete without baton 12 I didn’t want to know how much that bear costs this feels uniquely like a caricature of France it is a snail
Chocolate combining the best of both Specialties so far the cart is only full of chocolate and snack food very healthy some more French only Specialties here’s a distinctly French dish called sh C from aasin uh which is a mix of meat and sourkraut and one of the most important
Staples of the French diet the cheese section what you can’t see in the video is how strongly the cheese section smells this is a very French looking pizza no surprise here and here the most important item in all Costco the chicken rotis which is only6 not
Bad okay we’re going to try Reet which is melted cheese over pieces of meat or vegetables also incard we French the wine section which actually looks very similar to the American wine section with the exception that a lot of these wines are of French origin and in reality not too bad for the
Price here we have a 24 pack of prony for 28 stumbled upon a casual vodka tasting oh here we have maple serup here’s just a quick look at the prices of dog food we’ve got protein powder supplements shampoo and soaps here’s the drink aisle this is the absolute best flavor
Of iced tea that I’ve had which is watermelon and mint um I’ve only seen it in France but I do believe it is of Arab origin and here’s a familiar product which is actually quite different in France uh so if you look at Fanta here it actually
Looks like real orange juice if we compare that to American Fanta um the American Fanta is this kind of very fake looking bright orange and the difference between them is that the French Fanta actually has real orange juice in it and so if you look at the label here it says
That the oranges actually come from Brazil now I’m not calling it any healthier but I can personally say it the French version does taste much better I was able to find some whipped cream for my pumpkin pie here’s a quick look at some sauces that are popular in France like Tunisian
Sauce and onion and red pepper sauce here’s a look at the refrigerated food section I’m going to hunt to find dough for pumpkin pie which I honestly should just make myself and here are some of the frozen foods Seline found some of the last Flamin chicken
Nuggets for me it’s always funny to see how American culture is presented as a caricature outside of the US don’t sleep on these they actually have some great ice cream options here here we have 20 free range eggs for 660 not bad at all yeah that wasn’t spicy at
All and here’s a look at the meat prices you will see that Global Food inflation has definitely impacted France as Well but I can’t tell you enough how tempting this 130 yearo Spanish ham was and here’s the most French thing that you can get here which is a doert croissants for6 and there’s more American Specialties like Dunkin Donuts which I’ve never seen in a store before and we got
It you’re are panc cakes of both the American and French varieties and now let’s head into the fruit and vegetabl section and we finally found pumpkins early something very similar this is a squash called a which has a very similar taste and texture to a pumpkin just a
Lot smaller not too great for carving but it’s going to work just fine for our pie uh okay there’s an optical and hearing department much like in the US we then checked out for a grand total of €225 82 finally it’s time to try the iconic
Costco Food Corp here’s a better look at the menu so from left to right there’s a Sunday of choice comp salad chicken bake and the classic $150 hot dog or in this case eur50 hot dog a pizza chicken tenders with fries and just fries and the prices are more or less identical to
Their American counterparts the drink machine had this interesting feature presumably to counter free refills but basically you scan a QR code on the side of the cup to begin dispensing your drink and then it automatically cuts off when the uh cup is full or has dispensed the amount of
Liquid that you purchase but of course the the ultimate deciding factor is a taste test I decided to get a chicken bake and a hot dog the chicken bake is about half the size of what you’d find in the US and the hot dog is roughly the
Same okay this is much smaller than it is in the US the chicken bake helver was overall a bit fresher and filled with stewed pulled chicken um and actually got a few pieces of cartilage and Bone which is obviously much different than the cubes of chicken you get in the
US hot dog tasted exactly the same it’s a hot dog finally we left the store and took elevators down to the parking garage and there you have it I traveled to Costco and France so you don’t have to hope you enjoyed it
Ever wanted to explore Costco in France but couldn’t go? My mom did, so I made this video for her. But maybe you’re just as weird and want to see it too. Look no further because I went to French Costco so you don’t have to.
We’ll look at prices, explore sales tax, see local specialties, and try out the food court just to see what’s the same and different between Costco in the US and France.
Note that this is not the most comprehensive tour of Costco, as it is a huge store, but rather a quick snapshot to highlight what distinguishes the French market.
Special thanks to my French cousin, Céline, for driving me an hour away to the nearest Parisian Costco.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:00 Arrival
2:52 Explanation of Prices
4:45 First Sample
5:00 Watches and Jewelry
5:13 Snacks
5:56 Coffee & Coffee Machines
6:13 Clothing
6:43 Christmas Decor
7:31 French Food Specialties
8:55 Rotisserie Chickens!
9:08 Prepared Foods
9:19 Raclette Sample
9:33 Wine
10:31 Miscellaneous Pantry Items
10:45 Dog Food
11:02 Protein & Supplements
11:12 Bath
11:45 Soft Drinks
12:18 French Fanta
13:03 Refrigerated Foods
13:23 Frozen Foods
14:18 Eggs
15:35 Bakery
16:09 Fruits and Vegetables
17:02 Vision, Hearing, and Tire Centers
17:17 Checking Out
17:24 Food Court
14:40 Meat