Grocery stores are a veritable fondue pot of weird, distressing, and annoying behavior. Maybe the most confounding grocery store experience of all? Shopping at Costco, where you can buy anything from a coffin, tins of caviar, to a swimming pool on your way to pick up bananas and lunch meat.
So it goes without saying that, even with a membership system in place, Costco shoppers tend to go a bit overboard with how comfortable (er, entitled) they feel in the store, according to employees' and customers’ posts on Reddit. Wonder if you might be a bit guilty of committing a Costco-related faux pas? Here are just some of the most annoying things people do at Costco:
1. You put your receipt away before you leave the store.
With so many people and carts inside one store, there’s bound to be a bottleneck somewhere in Costco. The one place you really don’t want one to occur? Right at the exit. While it might be second nature to safely stow your receipt in your bag or pockets, resist that urge at Costco, especially when the door checkers look over your receipt. It will cause a major traffic jam when you seemingly literally just had your receipt somewhere, but now you can't find it.
2. You place your membership card in the divider.
A new, contentious customer behavior involves placing your membership card on top of the divider that's on the conveyor belt. The practice sparked a debate online earlier this year, when both customers and employees said that it's problematic because the card can easily fall under the belt. It also isn’t necessarily getting you through the checkout line any faster. Simply put, just be a human being and do the more personable thing by presenting the card yourself to your cashier when requested.
3. You don’t know how to act in the parking lot.
As someone who has worked for Trader Joe’s, where some of the most terrifying parking lots in the country are located, I can say that Costco’s parking lots give those a run for their money. I’m not sure when drivers in the parking lot have decided that each Costco run requires an End of the World-level of speed in which to enter and exit the parking lot, but it’s really not necessary. We might need to require people to go back to school for basic manners and parking lot etiquette prior to getting their Costco memberships.
4. You block aisles while eating samples.
One of the main perks of strolling through Costco is getting to try all those free samples. But that doesn’t mean those areas of the store should become the newest hang out spot in town. Kindly grab your cup of shrimp cocktail and mosey onwards so as to not block the aisle.
5. You’re in an unnecessary rush.
Look, grocery shopping is not something you can do in a rush. Ever! Full Stop! This is true of shopping at all grocery stores, but it’s especially true while shopping at a high-volume warehouse like Costco. Do you need to nearly clip someone’s ankles while weaving through the aisles? Or huff loudly as you try to inch closer in line? You really don’t, so reconsider your shopping time table more carefully next time, because Costco is not the place to act out your Supermarket Sweep fantasy.
