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.
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
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.
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.
They started this here months ago. My wife kept her maiden name when we got married. I'm sure you can figure out why our 2 hour customer service call ended in cancellation. FUCK Costco
In a decade you’re the first person I’ve ever met who had a problem with Costco.
Did you not bother to get your wife her own card?
My wife never changed her name, but she's got her own card under her name, on my membership.
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.
Honestly, I've been considering just cancelling my Costco membership. Sam's Club let's you scan as you shop, check out on your phone, and walk out. If Costco let you do that, it would help cut down on this greatly.
Only let two phones be registered at a time and that's your ID. Or have different tiers for solo, duo, or family with different price tiers. If you get a new phone, you have to invalidate your old registration. Have TOTP or one-time QR codes generated in the app for when you check out in line or at the gas station. Let the old people still have cards, but you check their ID every time. If someone forgets their card, let them look it up by phone number and present an ID to prove they are that member. Could even give $10 off a membership for going digital or an extra 60 days of membership if you go all-digital to incentivize it. When someone goes digital, flag their card barcode as no longer active in the system if someone tries to use it.
If you go digital, you get to scan n go and walk right out. Someone scans a QR code of your receipt as you leave like they do at Sam's Club. Sam's Club even let's you scan a gas pump with your phone and it will already program in a credit card of your choice, tie that pump to your membership, and give you a digital receipt. Totally paperless and basically zero contact.
Yawn. Costco > Sam's club (ew, Walmart) for treating employees, plus Kirkland brand is the best store-name brand. Btw you can have a digital card on Costco app. I'm not even sure what your reason was for canceling, and for some reason I read your whole comment twice
This. I choose Costco for many reasons. I don't care what others like about Sam's bc I'm not going to give money to that company.
The one place where Sam’s beats Costco is its scan and go app. You literally scan the barcodes of the items you want to purchase as you shop, check out in the app and walk out the door. Never have to speak to anyone or wait in the checkout line.
I could understand how this would appeal to someone with extreme social anxiety or someone really pressed for time, but in reality I don't care for this at all. I'll wait in line for 2-5 minutes or scan it myself at self checkout if I'm really pressed for time for some reason
Well that sucks. A lot. We only have a Sam's Club here, but my family buys very little in the sizes that they offer things. There's one exception which is a much bigger expense otherwise, so we borrow my wife's co-worker's card every other month, buy a few boxes, then do it again. So we are there like four times a year and maybe spend $400 total. With a membership, it would be another $50 on top of that. For going four times a year. I'm sure they'll follow Costco's lead.
I wish more places had the Scan and Go option in the app like Sam’s Club. Not having to visit a register is so nice.
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?
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.