“They know that for a certain amount of people entering the store, within a certain amount of time, there should be a certain amount of registers open to accommodate those shoppers who are ready to check out,” she said. According to Rachael, that headcount gets relayed to the supervisor in charge of opening registers. Walk into a Costco and you’ll probably notice an employee with a click counter taking inventory of incoming members. There’s a good reason why Costco doesn't have an express checkout lane.Ī Costco checkout line. The only difference is the prices are more reasonable.” 6. “It's basically like a gas station's convenience store, with both frozen and fresh meals and snacks. “ relatively new addition that is being implemented at more warehouses,” Steve, an employee in California, told us in 2018. Rows of vending machines offer fresh meals, snacks, and sodas, along with a complete kitchen for preparing food brought from home. Many opt for the employee break room, which-in some warehouse locations-looks more like a highway rest stop. While employees are generally allowed to eat their lunch or dinner meals in the food court, not all of them are crazy about pizza and hot dogs as part of their daily diet. Costco has a convenience store-within-a-store. “It tells me you return so much stuff that you know what we can find on the computer.” 5. “When someone comes in to return something without a receipt and they go, ‘Oh, you can look it up on my account,’ that’s a tell,” Thomas, an employee in California, told us in 2018. Scott Olson/GettyImagesĬostco purchase records typically date back 10 years or so, but employees working the return counter don’t always need to reference your account to know that you're making a habit of getting refunds. Costco employees can tell when you’re a serial returner.Ĭostco cashiers keep the lines moving. The store refunded both the cost of the appliance and the spoiled meat inside. Rachael has also seen a member return a freezer that was allegedly no longer working. Then, when they've worn it out and want something new, they bring it back and get a full refund.” “My guess is that they buy that couch with the intention of returning it someday, so they tape the receipt to the bottom of the couch so they don't lose it. “Members return couches that are over 5 years old, and interestingly enough, they still have the receipt,” Rachael said. Naturally, some members are willing to abuse the privilege. Most anything purchased there can be brought back for a refund as part of the company’s overall emphasis on exceptional customer service. The generous return policy can get messy for Costco employees.Ĭostco infamously places very few restrictions on returns. “You just bring your cart to the front register.” The store will keep the member service counter open so workers can check out after other registers have closed. “You can shop after hours, and a lot of employees do that,” Kathleen, a Costco employee in Washington state, told us in 2018. While employees typically don’t get shopping discounts, they have something that’s arguably better: the opportunity to shop in a near-empty store. Costco employees can do their shopping after hours. Ditto for those giant stacks of shoes and bottles of salsa or five-gallon jugs of cooking oil. “When you see pallets stacked with 50-pound bags of flour or sugar or dog food or cat litter, a lot of that stuff had to be stacked by hand by employees before the store opens. “I walk about 5 to 8 miles a day on average, and that's all within the confines of the store,” Rachael, a Costco employee in Colorado, told us in 2018. Turns out that navigating a warehouse full of goods stacked to the ceiling is kind of like getting an all-day gym pass. Working at Costco might be better than going to the gym. (All requested we use only their first names to preserve anonymity.) Here’s what they had to tell us about life in the pallets. But we wanted a little more information, so we asked several Costco workers about everything from pet peeves to nail polish bans to revoking memberships. It’s no secret that Costco employees are a relatively happy bunch. Not having to incur costs of training replacements is just one reason the company keeps prices low. And after one year of employment, the company's turnover rate was only 6 percent-that's compared to the estimated average of slightly more than 60 percent across the retail industry in 2021, according to the National Retail Federation. While employees at other chains express concerns over low pay and questionable management choices, Costco’s minimum wage was increased to $16 an hour at the beginning of 2021. Costco has become something of a unicorn in the brick-and-mortar industry.
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