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Costco Just Announced Another Major Shopping Change, and It Has Shoppers Divided

Lizzy Francis
Lizzy FrancisLifestyle Editor at Apartment Therapy
I've been writing seriously since I was 16. I knew as soon as I graduated college that I only wanted to work in an industry where I'd be writing and editing for my day job. I don't see myself doing anything else. My biggest professional accomplishment is that, due to consistent and incisive coverage of the lack of federal paid leave in the United States in my role as a News Editor as a News Editor at a parenting organization, that brand was invited to testify on the need for paid leave in front of the House Ways & Means Committee. My personal accomplishments are centered around my passion for writing: I've written several plays, had poetry and short fiction published, written a novel, and have another book in progress. I love making people's lives better through service journalism, be that by helping solve problems or by explaining the problems as they exist. The world is hard enough — good journalism should make it easier to understand (and be fun, too!)
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published Aug 11, 2024
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COSTCO on Raleigh Road. Headquartered in Issaquah, WA, Costco Wholesale Corp. is a membership-only warehouse club that provides a wide selection of merchandise.
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It’s been a summer of big changes for Costco. Just a month after the wholesaler announced that it would be hiking the prices of both its basic (Gold Star) and Executive membership, Costco just shared that it will scan membership cards and check IDs at every single location across the country. This news comes after the company launched a pilot program of the scanners at select Costco locations earlier in 2024. 

In an announcement on the Costco customer service website, the company revealed that “over the coming months, membership scanning devices will be used at the entrance door of your local warehouse. Once deployed, prior to entering, all members must scan their physical or digital membership card by placing the barcode or QR code against the scanner. Guests must also be accompanied by a valid member for entry.”

Both Costco membership tiers come with two membership cards, so it’s more important than ever that you bring your own, rather than grabbing whichever one is on the kitchen counter.

That’s because there’s another major change coming to that Costco membership. If you’ve never taken a photo for your Costco card, get ready to bring your game face, or at least your license. 

“Additionally, if your membership card does not have a photo, please be prepared to show your valid photo ID,” the announcement reads. “We encourage you to stop by the membership counter to have a photo taken to have on your card.” And while you’re still able to bring guests along with you as you shop, those guests will have to be with you as you have your membership card. 

In a mega-thread about the change on the Costco subReddit, members sounded off on the change, and perhaps surprisingly, the feedback was pretty positive. One Redditor said that they thought the rollout would “actually help solve a ton of issues Costco currently faces,” including cutting down on “the ‘you didn’t check his card at the door’” fiasco that can make getting in and out of Costco a bogged-up mess. While some people said they hate it, most members thought this would clear up points of bottlenecks throughout Costco and made no difference in their shopping experience.

But some people on TikTok complained. In one video in late July, a user complained that the people in front of them in the card scanner line were denied entry to Costco because they weren’t the “primary card owner.” They also noted that under the previous Costco card system, you weren’t able to check out unless you had your Costco card, anyway. In the caption of the video, they wrote: “Lets [sic] say that it’s a family members card, you are still buying items and bringing them money, so who cares if its not you.”

The change will roll out to all stores through 2024.

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