Bad news if you’re mooching off of someone else’s Costco membership: The retail giant is cracking down.
When you enter Costco, you need to show your membership card to an employee to shop. Costco membership cards are non-transferable, but the company allows members to give a second household card to one other person in their home. Anyone with a card can bring up to two guests to the club during each visit, the company stipulates.
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.
Costco recently started asking for shoppers’ membership cards along with a photo ID at the self-checkout registers, the same policy as regular checkout lanes, to crack down. “We don’t feel it’s right that non-members receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” Costco said in announcing the change.
And now, 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. Shoppers have spotted the new scanners at a store in Washington State and posted photos on Reddit.
Meh, it depends on how much you really need to buy. We have a big household so we do genuinely save buying in bulk when we’d usually need to get at least a couple packages of whatever food to feed everyone.
Doing probably 75% of my shopping there with the 2% cash back has allowed my membership to pay for itself. And personally, knowing that they treat their employees fairly well is big draw, especially with how draining retail work can be.
So it’s definitely not for everyone, but if you do actually use all of the stuff you buy, it does have decent benefits.
Sure, but why should you have to pay for the privilege of shopping there in the first place?
Because they offer something that other stores cannot. Why do you pay for any privilege that you pay for?
No, they offer the same things other stores offer in larger quantities so the per item cost is lower. You’re paying for that. Movie theaters offer something other businesses don’t. Would it be acceptable for them to require you to have a movie theater membership before being allowed to buy a ticket or popcorn?
…you just admitted that you’re paying for a benefit. What are you even arguing here? If other stores do not offer larger quantities where the per item cost is lower, then that’s the benefit you’re paying for.
Movie theatres are a bad counter too. You can’t get into the movie theatre to buy popcorn without a ticket in most theatres. The ticket is your admittance in the same way the membership is.
You pay for a membership for the benefit of buying a movie ticket. What’s the difference?
Some people do. AMC has a stubs rewards program that gives you discounts on tickets. Even if you don’t have that, though, you still have to buy a ticket to get into the theatre and buy popcorn and snacks. Without a ticket, you can’t get in.
Again- you have to buy a membership to buy a ticket in this scenario. Why do you keep avoiding that? Is it because you know that wouldn’t be okay in pretty much any other setting but Costco and Sam’s Club?
What are you talking about? In what scenario do you have to buy a membership to buy a ticket? The ticket is your membership.
Because it’s part of what allows them to keep costs down. If you’re only going to go once or twice a year, they’re losing money on you. They need a way to compensate for unprofitable shoppers, and a bit of sunk cost to keep the regulars coming back.
Still, I tallied up my last Costco trip with the equivalent of the same items at our regular grocery store and came up about $35 cheaper, that’s already a decent chunk towards my membership cost and doesn’t include cash back. In capitalism, that’s about as close to a win-win as you can get.