Costco is a place that people love. Fans are rabid, scooping up Kirkland-branded sweatshirts and decking their dogs out as walking billboards. And everyone has a favorite Kirkland Signature product that they’ll buy in multiples just in case it is suddenly not available.
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But hear us out, Costco fanatics: some things about Costco are annoying. Not annoying enough to make us cancel our membership, but mildly annoying — just enough to complain about it on Reddit. Whether it is the circuitous style of shopping, the limited payment options, or the frequent changes to what is available (and where you can find it), some things just rub shoppers the wrong way.
Consider this a plea to the Costco gods to take pity on us and change a few things. Open earlier, bring back the muffins (in smaller packages!), and please don’t tempt our kids with Christmas presents in August. Here are some of the mildly annoying things about shopping at Costco that we can’t get out of our heads.
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They only take Visa
One mildly annoying thing about Costco that you’ll want to consider before purchasing a membership? They only accept Visa credit cards. According to Costco.com, U.S. locations accept all Visa cards, most PIN-based debit or ATM cards, Costco Shop cards, cash, personal and business checks, traveler’s checks, and EBT cards.
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Why not other cards like Discover or American Express? While Costco used to have an exclusive agreement to accept American Express cards, that agreement ended in 2006. Costco was able to negotiate a deal with Visa to lower the interchange fee at Costco stores to below 0.5%, a major saving that the warehouse store has passed on to customers through consistently low prices. If Costco were to accept other credit cards, with fees from 2-3%, that additional cost would need to be included in product prices paid by customers.
Costco also accepts mobile payment using Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay, but they’re not a workaround. These mobile payment platforms are not credit cards or banks themselves, but facilitate the use of your credit cards without having to have the physical card in your hand. So if you’ve only got an American Express card in your Apple Wallet, your Apple Pay payment at Costco will be rejected.
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They aren’t open early
Sorry, early birds. Unless you’re shopping at a Costco Business Center (which has different hours than standard stores, opening at 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday), you’ll have to wait until 9:30 or 10 a.m. to fill up your oversized cart.
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Traditional grocery stores have a wide range of hours, with pre-dawn hours that give shoppers more variety (and are great for a quick trip when you realize you’re out of milk for your coffee). Though shoppers rarely pop into Costco for just one thing, the lines you’ll see at the door before they open are proof that some people want to get their shopping, bulk or otherwise, done ASAP.
Costco hours are pretty consistent across the country, from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, excluding holidays. Those later weekday hours help, but it does still lead to crowded stores after work and on weekends, with fewer options for people who work a regular 9-to-5 job. Want to get to Costco at its quietest? The best time to shop is Tuesday through Thursday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. — late lunch, anyone?
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Check-out lines are chaotic when it gets busy
If you’ve been to more than one Costco location, you may have noticed the general layout is the same. Aisles of appliances on one side, coolers and freezers in the back, shelf-stable food on the other side, and a mixture of clothes, furniture, and seasonal items in the middle. Right up front? Rows of registers and the food court — and a major congestion point.
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That final step of visiting Costco is an annoying experience that will make you wish you’d visited during off-hours. There is usually only room for a few carts between the registers and the first row of items, so if the lines get longer you might find yourself trying to use your oversized cart to assert dominance and hold your spot in line.
Opening more registers helps a bit, but even getting from the shopping area to the registers is tricky. Every shopper is wielding a huge cart — or one of those impossible-to-drive flat carts designed for TVs or furniture — and trying to find some efficiency in the final moments of their Costco experience, and it’s hard to know where to go. Time to take a note from the Trader Joe’s crew members who bring order to rush hour lines with aplomb.
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You can’t have more than two household members on an account
A membership, like a Visa card, is a must for shopping at Costco. And if you do bulk shopping, feed an army of kids, or are looking for great deals on electronics and household items, it’s a worthwhile investment. But that doesn’t mean it is a perfect system.
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Every personal Costco membership includes two cards. That means that you could split a membership with your boyfriend or your bestie — as long as you live in the same household. However, if you’ve already accounted for both of those household cards, you can’t add another person to your account. That means you can’t get a card for your high schooler (16 and up, of course) or the nanny who helps out with shopping and errands without getting another membership.
Major inconvenience? No. Minorly annoying? Yes. Costco does offer membership deals for college students, teachers, first responders, medical professionals, members of the military, and government employees, but it’s not a discount. If you fall into one of these categories and sign up for a membership with auto-renewal, you get a digital Costco Shop Card for $20, or $40 for a Gold Star or Executive membership, respectively.
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The food court ordering kiosks don’t save time
Costco introduced ordering kiosks in food courts in 2018, and they’ve been plagued by complaints ever since. One point of contention? How the food is delivered to customers.
Instead of giving each order a number and calling it out when it is ready, food is prepared in the order in which the purchase was made. Sure, it’s fair — you order first, you get food first — but it forces customers to move from a cluster of kiosks to a line to wait for their food, at which point you might as well just line up, order, and get your food all in one place.
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Another annoyance is the layout of the entire food court area. Namely, where the heck are you supposed to put your cart? Yes, there is space between tables for carts, but if every diner keeps their cart next to their table (understandably, to watch their belongings), it creates a maze that you then have to navigate, holding hot food and also pushing a huge shopping cart.
The muffins still aren’t quite right
Oh, the Costco muffin. The thing that annoys me most about Costco right now is the major change they made to the muffins — arguably, not for the better.
Gone are the massive poppy seed, chocolate, and blueberry muffins that were actually small cakes. Was it annoying that you had to buy 12 when six was already way too much muffin? Yes. But they were so good that it was worth it, even if you had to throw a few away because they went stale before you could eat them all. If only this complaint were about wishing we could buy just one pack of muffins instead of two.
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But in late 2024, Costco changed everything about the muffins. Now, you can get muffins in four new flavors: Blueberries and Cream, Triple Chocolate, Lemon Raspberry, and either Cinnamon Chip or Butter Pecan. The base recipes have also changed, using butter instead of oil. Only time will tell if Costco will stick with the change, or if they’ll finally give the people what they want: the original muffins, available in smaller packages.
You have to place special orders in-store
There’s nothing quite like the simple pleasure of a grocery store cake. For a cake that serves a crowd (we’re talking an advertised 48 servings) and is filled with an airy and indulgent mousse instead of just grainy buttercream, you can’t beat the Costco bakery. But even a cake that satisfying has an annoying side.
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If you want your Costco cake customized in any way — your choices are a piped message and a limited selection of frosting designs — you’ll have to place your order in person (and at least one day in advance). To make things even more low-tech, that cake order must be placed using a paper order form that is dropped into a slot on the top of the cake-ordering kiosk. And you might even need to bring your own pen.
The same goes for other special-order party platters, like a sandwich tray or a meat and cheese platter. Grab a paper form, fill it out, and drop it in the slot. It’ll feel like the ’90s all over again. Costco is known for being slow to adopt internet-based sales in the name of saving customers money, but cake and sandwich ordering feels like something they should get behind — especially as it isn’t that different from the now-ubiquitous food court kiosks.
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Treasure Hunt-style shopping takes a lot of time
Costco devotees have a love-hate relationship with the store’s iconic Treasure Hunt shopping style. Some, like this author, love meandering through the aisles, perusing new finds as we get our steps in. But others (also like this author) would love to be able to get in, get out, and get on with life.
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Those aisles make you wish for a map (or a homing beacon) when beloved items are regularly moved. Not a lot — there is a method to the store’s layout — but just enough that you have to turn down one or two extra aisles to find what you’re looking for. Sure, the landmarks of the pharmacy and the rotisserie chicken are stagnant, but are the chips behind the freezer aisles or next to the coffee? Well, it depends on the day.
It’s all part of the Costco plan, of course. As you wander, you might spot something new or something that’s discounted, leading to an impulse buy. At least we’re saving time once we find what we need, as Costco’s approximately 4,000 SKUs are carefully vetted and incredibly priced, meaning there’s no additional product- or price-comparing needed.
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The aisles aren’t labeled
An efficient grocery store trip takes a little bit of planning but pays off in spades. A few musts: shopping at optimal times, knowing your grocery store layout, and organizing your list to match your path through the store. The store’s numbered and labeled aisles make planning and shopping much easier, but at Costco? Not an aisle label in sight.
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The aisles are numbered, yes, but that system doesn’t actually help you find what you’re looking for. Most Costco locations follow a similar layout and flow, but the constantly moving items mean you can’t even depend on muscle memory to get you to your favorite cereal or bulk toilet paper.
Of course, we know that mild confusion is something Costco depends on. It increases the chances that you’ll drop a few extra items in your cart as you wonder why the rice cups are with the packaged sauces instead of the bags of rice (where they were on your last visit). And there’s no easy fix for this annoyance. All you can do as a shopper is ensure you’ve got ample time to figure out where you’re going, as well as the willpower to avoid the shiny new products hidden between the items on your list.
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Some discounts are available either in-person or online, but not both
There is a time and a place for shopping in-store versus online, whether due to convenience or local availability. But it is always surprising (and a little annoying) to see discrepancies in pricing for identical items — something that happens frequently at Costco.
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Costco’s online shopping isn’t necessarily limited, it’s just … different. There are many items that are available online that you can’t get in a store and vice versa. For products that are available in both places, the prices don’t always match — something that Costco.com readily admits. There are a few reasons for that.
The first is Costco.com’s shipping. While it might look in your cart like the shipping is free, it is actually included, which means any shipping costs are built into the listed price of the item. This can cause prices on Costco.com to be higher than those in-store, where you (the shopper) are doing the labor and delivery instead of Costco employees or contractors.
Second, some Costco deals are specific to individual stores. Costco’s Manager Specials are specific to each store, and even items that are discontinued (and therefore discounted) in one location may still be available at another. This may play into why so many products don’t appear on the Costco website — it simply isn’t consistent enough from one store to the next, across states and regions.
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The constant changing of items means they don’t always have things you love
Costco could teach a master class in training customers to shop the way they want. We pay membership fees, endure the Treasure Hunt, and sing the praises of Kirkland brand products (rightfully so — store-brand items are made by major players and come at a great price).
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Shoppers have also learned to anticipate scarcity, because sometimes when something is gone, it’s gone, at least for a while. Because Costco keeps so few individual products in stock, product turnover is frequent. Seasonal items come and go, low-performing items are replaced, and changes in pricing or availability prompt Costco to seek out alternatives to maintain low prices for members.
Costco is already a great place to stock up on pantry staples, especially if you have the storage space. If you’ve found a niche item you love, it might be worth grabbing an extra box or two (again, if you’ve got the storage space) just in case it falls victim to the frequent product shifts. Fingers crossed it makes its way back onto the warehouse floor again soon!
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Seasonal items are out way too early
If you put your Christmas decorations up the day after Halloween, Costco is the place for you. The warehouse retailer is notorious for making seasonal items available incredibly early — we’re talking Christmas trees in August alongside the Halloween candy — and, to be honest, it’s kind of annoying.
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Now, don’t call us Scrooge. It’s just ridiculous to be bombarded with animatronic skeletons before school is out or jolly snowmen when you’re shopping for popsicles and hoping to find a few pool floats. And we know it isn’t just Costco. Grocery stores have Easter candy out alongside Valentine’s cards, too. But it is Costco’s manufactured scarcity that makes these early offerings feel offensive.
Since Costco shoppers are conditioned to stock up and to know that a lot of items are gone once they run out, it makes it hard to avoid the impulse to grab wrapping paper in September. And it is even worse if you’re shopping with a kid. Take it from me — hearing constant chatter about a must-have holiday present starting the first week of school makes for a very, very long fall.
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Self checkout isn’t easy or efficient
At Costco, self-checkout has never really worked. Instead of being able to scan items directly in the cart, initially, shoppers had to place every scanned item on the register, and then put it all back into the cart afterward. Then, to cut down on membership sharing, some locations stationed an employee to verify that the picture on the card matched the cardholder, creating a bottleneck instead of a faster way to pay.
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These days, self-checkout isn’t an independent activity. Costco employees are stationed by groups of registers, assisting customers to quickly scan their items (which all get to stay right in the cart). It’s faster than unloading your cart onto a register belt, easier than trying to navigate self-checkout on your own, and finally does cut down on time — though it’s definitely not happening the way Costco originally intended.
There are limits, though. You cannot redeem an Executive Member rewards check at a self-checkout kiosk, and local laws will determine whether you can purchase alcohol at a self-checkout lane, with or without the help of an employee.
The food court menu is limited
Home of the $1.50 hot dog combo and the infamous chicken bake, seasoned with Caesar dressing for extra savory goodness, the Costco food court is an institution. The pizza may not be our favorite thing on the menu, but it is affordable and a whole pie feeds a (huge) crowd. But that doesn’t mean the food court is perfect.
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First, the food court menu is very limited. There are around a dozen items available, most of which are variations on a theme (plain or pepperoni pizza; vanilla or chocolate ice cream). Sure, it’s not supposed to be a full sit-down restaurant, but there are no sides or smaller snack items available, with food court portions matching Costco’s bulk buy ethos.
Second, it’s nearly impossible to have a health-conscious meal, even with so many other healthy options a few steps away. The only salad on the menu is the chicken Caesar salad, which pairs the admittedly tasty rotisserie chicken with creamy, rich dressing. Even the turkey sandwich rings in at a whopping 900 calories. How hard would it be to sell individual portions of the grain salad?
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