Makes sense, Costco makes its money from the memberships, not selling you stuff at wholesale prices after you've got one
Does it? What I get in rewards from shopping and refueling there more than makes up for my membership.
The money you're saving doesn't necessarily have to have any relation to the profit they make.
My costco card has my photo on it. Is that not a thing everywhere?
It is where I am as well, plus if you download the app you can bring up your ID card their as well, and it has the same photo on that as well.
Nope, during COVID they stopped taking or checking photos. They've had to spend the last few months getting everyone to get a new card now.
My Costco photo is 20 years old and looks nothing like me anymore, but when I asked for a new photo they said no. So obviously they aren't looking closely at pictures.
One of the last times I was in, I was asked for my photo ID and Costco membership card no less than 5 times by employees. I literally got asked while I was in an isle looking at items. I've never had this happen before and made me honestly a bit irritated having to constantly pull my ID out of my wallet. This policy needs to chill.
Aisle*
About time. Doors are such an overrated method of entry.
edit: nevermind, read the article
Semi-related fun fact that I like to share; Costco doesn’t require membership for alcohol or pharmacy purchases.
Used to be food court too, but I believe they stopped that in 2020 ish
This just saves the time of having such people getting in and filling up a cart and being stopped at the register. I've never been able to mooch off someone else's membership at Costco. The membership cards have photos of the member on them and they would stop me at the register whenever my dad sent me with his and not let me actually make the purchase. And I haven't even been to Costco (outside of the food court at the one down the street since it's outside and I can get that sweet hotdog combo without needing a membership) for years.
Now if they'd just come up with a new system for parking in the parking lot...
What do you want them to create rotating carousels of underground parking? Their parking lots are already massive what more do you want.
I just always go to the farthest possible parking spot from the store cuz they are generally always open easy to get in and out of and bypass all the stupid closer to the store
If people are so annoyed by the parking situation, just plan your visits when it's not as busy. It's not that difficult, even if it might be inconvenient.
I don’t know how anyone could ever stand going to Costco on the weekends. Just don’t. That’s like voluntarily driving during rush hour when you have the option not to. Unless you work the exact hours that Costco is open, going on a weekday evening is so much better of an experience all around. Weekday mornings aren’t bad either. I would have to be truly desperate for gas or groceries to go to Costco on the weekend vs just waiting until Monday.
From the article, as I didn't see this being mentioned in the OP summary...
Costco is testing out a system that requires members to scan their membership cards at the store entrance — instead of just flashing the card to employees.
So it seems like there's two different things going on, per the article, when you're entering the building, and when you're trying to use a self checkout machine.
I hate going to costco so many people and the suv carts.
I mean the carts are specifically designed for what they sell. Sam's and BJs are the same way. A smaller cart would be filled with just a couple items.
But Costco has noticed that non-members have been sneaking in with membership cards that don’t belong to them — particularly since Costco expanded self-checkout.
In other words, punishing customers for a self-inflicted issue.
How is it punishing customers? The rest of the article suggests it may improve things
“It speeds up the process at entry and speeds up the process at the checkout,” he said. “That’s what we believe and we’re going to pilot it.”
How can it possibly speed up things at entry? They're going to be checking IDs like a bouncer at a club. I can imagine it speeding up checkout only if they stop requiring card scanning at that time too, and/or massive amounts of people are doing this today.
How does this mean that people won't have to scan their cards and prove themselves at checkout, when they allow anyone inside for the pharmacy, optical center, and to purchase alcohol?
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