Costco employees hate several things — sweaty chickens under t-shirts, cart-blockers, and
screaming kids.
Here’s how to be an informed shopper, even in the world’s biggest pantry!
Costco occasionally clears an old product off its shelves to make way for a new product.
The company also stops selling items that no one wants to buy.
Both of these are totally normal practices in the retail and grocery worlds and they’re
usually initiated somewhere in the corporate side of the company.
Yet, that doesn't stop customers from getting upset at employees on the sales floor because
a favorite product disappeared.
The customers' behavior can sometimes reach a very weird pitch.
As described on a Reddit thread, one time a customer threatened to cancel their membership
because the company no longer sold the coffee he wanted.
Another time, during the beginning of the pandemic, someone asked if Costco no longer
carried Kirkland products.
As the other Redditors point out, none of the Costco employees are responsible for any
of these products going away.
“And there goes Pageant, she’s skipping over the instant soups, ignoring the dairy,
and she’s heading to the employees only section in the back!”
So, please don’t stop your local Costco employees and demand to know why the store
no longer has this or that product.
They most likely don't know.
If you've gone into Costco to buy a few of your regular items only to end up wandering
the aisles wondering where the heck everything you needed went, you've encountered Costco's
"treasure hunt" strategy.
This is a deliberate re-ordering of the merchandise in an effort to make you look for it and,
hopefully, purchase a few new items on impulse that you found during your search.
It's also the basis for a common Costco myth that the store is actually hiding items.
They're not; the overnight merchandising team is coming in and just moving things around.
Everything is in view, just in a different location.
Unsurprisingly, this strategy has actually gotten some complaints from customers.
In one Reddit thread, one customer complained that the dental items used to be in one place
and later were unexpectedly scattered around the entire store.
To make matters worse, when he asked an employee to see if the store had the items in stock,
the employee couldn’t give him a definitive answer.
The locations in the store where the items could be found weren’t available because
the store's computer system didn't have aisle numbers listed.
He said he ended up leaving empty-handed and called the treasure-hunt tactic "maddening."
“I didn’t really know we carried these.”
“These?
You guys got everything in here.”
Well, we sure do, is it working out for you?”
When you get to the cashier after navigating through the store, you face a choice: Either
you take the items out of your cart and place them on the belt, or you leave everything
in the cart but turn each item so that the barcode is facing up.
Unfortunately, each store and each cashier has their own preference.
If you're not sure what to do, Insider says to take items out of your cart and place them
on the belt, minus the very heavy or bulky items.
Keep those in the cart.
A post in this Reddit thread confirms that taking items out and placing them on the belt
helps cashiers scan everything.
Leaving items in the cart increases the risk that the cashier won't see some of the smaller
items and thus not ring them up.
However, if you leave items in your cart instead of placing them on the belt, there's a good
chance the cashier will be fine with it too.
Just be sure the smaller items in your cart are very visible and are arranged so that
the cashier can see everything easily.
Workers who are limited to specific areas of the stores, such as the sample carts or
the rotisserie-chicken counter, are often a captive audience for customers who want
to talk to someone.
Whether the workers actually like it when customers try to chat depends on the customer's
motive and attitude.
“Welcome to Costco.
I love you.
Welcome to Costco.
I love you.”
This was discussed in a few Reddit threads, such as this one where a sample worker says
they hate "forced" small talk but like it when customers genuinely want to talk with them.
Another sample worker even said that conversation was welcome — and the customer letting the
sample worker complain was even more welcome.
One employee in the rotisserie-chicken section, however, did express annoyance at the repeated
question of when the next batch would be ready, as well as questions about preparing items
from other departments, such as how to sous vide a roast.
Despite those irritations, the employee said they actually really like it when people stop
by to talk, calling the rotisserie section one of the roughest in the store.
Their one request was that you not block the case with your cart.
That employee's request that customers not block the chicken case with their carts is
not an isolated employee wish.
Apparently, carts blocking cases, aisles, other customers, and just about everything
else in the store is a major pet peeve of employees.
On one hand, it's kind of hard to not block something with the carts because those Costco
carts are huge.
The flatbed carts aren't much easier to deal with.
In 2021, a woman in Florida filed suit against Costco after being hit with a flatbed cart
that a customer could not control due to its size.
On the other hand, a lot of the problem stems from customers' behavior.
Costco employees venting on Reddit mention people stopping to talk to friends with both
carts blocking an aisle is problematic because it blocks the entire pathway.
Some customers really have a warped sense of how to treat the physical store around
them, according to employees.
When Insider interviewed Costco employees about bad shopper habits, one complaint was
that people would constantly leave trash in their carts.
Costco employees on Reddit added to the complaint by noting how the overnight merchandising
crew would have to clean up cups and plastic utensils that were randomly placed around
the shelves by customers who finished up a sample or two.
They noted that Costco consistently has trash cans in each aisle, and they really want you
to place all your trash in those cans.
Complaints aren't limited to having to pick up litter.
In one Reddit thread, Costco employees recounted times when they found perishable items placed
randomly around the store, rather than back in the refrigerators or freezers.
One found a roast on top of clothing; another found popsicles melting over boxes of crackers.
The practice is so annoying to employees that one poster actually wished employees could
punch people who did this.
As more than one comment put it, if you don't want something, hand it to a cashier to put
it back for you instead of leaving the item in random places around the store.
The chances that an employee will find the item before it melts or goes bad are basically zero.
Costco memberships and membership cards are for specific people, not families.
A common mistake people make is giving their card to someone else to use or grabbing a
spouse's card and attempting to use that instead of their own card.
While Costco employees have told Insider that it's not always possible to stop everyone
at the entrance and see their card, a few say they put their foot down and do not let
anyone in unless they have their own membership card or are a guest of a member.
“Can’t anyone get one of those cards?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I can talk to someone if you’d like.”
A problem that pops up all too often for workers involves customers' kids.
When Insider spoke with Costco employees about what they wanted to tell customers, the employees
had a few complaints and warnings about children.
One begged customers to get their kids to stop screaming, another wanted customers to
stop assuming employees would look out for the kids, and a third warned that letting
kids jump around in the carts was dangerous.
But not all of the advice stems from exasperation.
One Costco sample worker who created a Reddit AMA reminded other posters that any child
who is able to see the samples on the table can take them, no questions asked.
This means that customers need to educate their kids about any food allergies they have
so that the kids don't gulp down food that could make them ill.
According to a few Redditors, getting hired at Costco takes a little more footwork because
thousands of people apply online.
Your application isn't lost, of course, but a manager at a busy warehouse likely wouldn't
be able to wade through every single application.
Instead, the job-landing advice leans toward a few different tactics.
One is to apply online and give a physical copy of your resume to a manager or supervisor
at the warehouse where you want to work.
A Redditor who claimed to be in management advised applying online every month and emphasizing
any retail experience, as well as speaking to a manager if you're able to.
A lot of Redditors noted that Costco has two main hiring seasons — one around September
and October for temporary holiday help and another in April for permanent positions.
Retail and food service are not seen as a career choice by many, and that's understandable;
most of us have at least one summer retail or food-service nightmare story in our pasts.
Yet at Costco you'll find employees who do consider Costco to be their preferred employer.
They like what they do, or they like the atmosphere overall, and they want to stay.
One Refinery 29 writer who used to work at Costco, wrote in 2016 that she actually liked
working at Costco and, should she once again need to find a job, she'd go back immediately.
The writer pointed out that the job that makes someone happy isn't going to look the same
for everyone and mentioned that she even knew a manager who had started there in a job that
would normally be short-term.
And that's actually not uncommon.
Costco has a policy of trying to hire from within, helping employees move up the ranks
instead of bringing in higher-ups from outside the company.
In an interview with the Motley Fool, Costco founder Jim Sinegal said that, when the company
wants to hire a store manager, they deliberately hire only those who have been with Costco for years.