7 Things You Should Do Every Time You Shop at Costco (and 2 You Shouldn’t), According to 3 Employees

Allow me to state the obvious: I’m chatty. Like, chatty-at-the-grocery-store chatty. Everyone, to me, is a potential friend — and that’s absolutely the case at any grocery retailer. 

Some of the friendliest potential pals on the planet? They work at Costco — including my actual friend I met while working for another beloved grocer, Trader Joe’s. While this friend no longer works at Costco, they still have a 12-pack bulk order of knowledge that I use every time I hit up the warehouse, including check-out etiquette as well as how to get the freshest rotisserie chicken.

So, by bringing the wisdom of three of my old and new Costco employee friends together, I gathered all kinds of helpful intel on how to navigate the popular warehouse store without missing out on anything. Costco is, as you might expect, a bit secretive about their deals and practices, so I’ve changed the names of the helpful employees who chimed in. Here’s what they had to say. 

Costcos tend to be run very differently, depending on the general region or even state. Some might require all items to be put on a conveyor belt. Some might allow you to enter through the exit for refunds, while others require you to scan in at the entrance first. 

Then there are some locations that might not even check if it’s your actual picture on the card itself, while others will have two people to do the job (one to scan, one to check IDs as if you’re at Club Costco). Be open to the multitudes of differences that Costco locations can offer, as there will usually be quite a few.

Speaking of saving time, keep your cart rolling in an orderly way, says Charles, a Costco employee based in Southern California. Think of Costco as a small city (it kind of is, in a way), with the aisles being mini-roadways and carts as the cars. Here in the U.S., pedestrians tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk (the same side we drive on), and the same is often true for carts through a store. 

Spot a friend in the aisle? Keep those chats for outside the store, perhaps on the way to your actual car, rather than with your carts in the middle of the aisle. This will keep the traffic jams to a minimum and help you to become a world-class citizen of CostcoTown. 

“Every case of product on the pallet generally has the same expiration date,” says Stella, who wants to remind customers that digging through for “fresher” items leads to more mess than anything else. It’s also extra work on the employees’ part to clean up an area and make sure it’s not creating a fire hazard.

This is also mostly true for produce, where employees spend a lot of time removing any moldy, liquid-y berries or bruised bananas before they’re out on the floor. Still, some items can get missed. The best rule of thumb is to check your produce prior to leaving. Items are shipped in large quantities (5.5-feet-tall pallets!) and the refrigeration can hit the product very differently depending on where they are in the stack (inner portions receive less frigid air).

Costco, much like other low-price grocers like Aldi, Lidl, and Trader Joe’s, all save quite a lot of money (and real estate) by limiting their inventory. There’s less risk of items just sitting or going to waste, so retailers can sell them at lower prices. These savings are passed on to customers. 

What does this also mean? What’s on the floor is largely all that’s available that day; there’s no “checking in the back” for an item. Stella said it best: “There is no magical back room where an item that you want might be hidden … the back stock you were looking for is above your head in the steel racking that is all over the store.” If you do spot an out-of-stock item you were hoping to grab, ask an employee to look up when it will be back on the shelf. 

So you find yourself, like clockwork, hypnotized and sleepwalking towards the Costco rotisserie chickens. How do you know you’re getting the freshest bird? Check the oven clocks, says Charles, who says customers can typically peep the timer behind the rotisserie chicken case. If you’ve got a bit of time to spare, you can set up your grocery shop to allot enough time to swing by as it goes off and grab the chickens that are just making their way into the case. 

But even they might have to look something up once in a while. In those instances, “they likely have to walk the length of a football field to find a computer to get the answer,” says Stella. Employees are more than happy to do it, she explains, but suggest you stay put. “If you walk away, there is no way they can wander around a 30,000-square-foot building” to find you. 

This is the case at most grocery stores, but it’s especially true at Costco, where the large carts can seriously slow down the whole line if you’re asking an employee to grab a last-minute item or need a price-check. In fact, most Costco locations cannot adjust price discrepancies at checkout, so hang onto your receipt to get that adjustment taken care of at Member Services.

For David, a Costco employee based in Southern California, the biggest slowdowns are caused by customers not having their membership cards out, which cashiers need to scan before they can ring up your items. And if you need a box to cart your groceries away easily, say that right when you roll up so an employee can make sure they have one prior to scanning and bagging.

All three of the Costco employees I chatted with resoundingly repeated this same adage: Arrange the items in your cart with the barcodes facing up. This is especially handy with larger items that won’t fit on the conveyor belt, but can be used for really any and all items. It will get you through the line in a speedier fashion, and (bonus!) make your cashier SO happy when you stroll through. And trust me — you want them on your side.

I have said it a thousand times, and the Costco employees also resoundingly agree: Just bring your cart back to the corral, for the love of Pete. Similarly, don’t steal an employee’s flat cart — full stop. Employees typically have to walk the length of a football field to do much of anything (returning items to their rightful spots, taking trash to the back, grabbing a new flat cart), so this is just a big no-no on cart behavior.

Also, a wayward grocery cart is not only an easy way to get your car scratched (or even miss out on a clutch parking spot), but it also takes Costco employees a long time to wrangle them all, which means fewer people on the floor available to help with cashiering and stocking, which means you’re going to be waiting in line for longer. It’s the circle of life.  

Are you a Costco employee with a hot tip? Tell us about it in the comments below.