In the world of retail, Costco is undoubtedly one of the companies that generates the most buzz. Members are always raving about the retailer’s tantalizing deals on bulk goods and household staples, or discussing the best new bakery items and snacks to hit Costco’s shelves. These subtle in-store changes and rapid inventory turnover are a major part of Costco’s business model—they keep members happy and always hungry for more.
But the warehouse’s innovation runs much deeper than surface-level product swaps. Costco is also constantly working behind the scenes to add to its already massive list of services and make its entire shopping experience better, whether in-store or online. And, at the end of the day, larger shifts like these are what gets news outlets, investors, retail experts, and even competitors talking about the wholesale club as well.
Speaking of major changes, just in 2023 alone, Costco unveiled new advancements by the pallet load. Within the category of health and wellness, the warehouse expanded into telehealth to offer $29 primary care visits. It also cracked down heavily against membership fraud at its self checkouts and made some exciting additions to its fan-favorite food courts.
Plenty of additional changes are being rolled out in 2024—and many of these will directly impact the shopping experience for members in the months ahead. Read on for the 13 biggest changes underway at Costco this year!
Farewell, Kirkland Signature Chocolate Chips
While exciting new products are always hitting shelves at Costco, shoppers had to say goodbye to a beloved mainstay product earlier this year. Over the summer, members noticed that the popular Kirkland Signature Chocolate Chips (a private-label Costco item) had been totally replaced with Nestle’s Chocolate Chips. A Costco memo explained that the company discontinued the Kirkland chocolate chips because the rising price of cocoa would prevent it from offering a competitive price for the product. However, the memo didn’t rule out the possibility of a comeback for the Kirkland Signature chocolate chips in the future.
Rumors also began to circulate this past summer that Costco was discontinuing its popular Country French Bread, though the company didn’t respond to our queries for confirmation at the time.
Books To Be Phased Out
While the Kirkland Signature Chocolate Chips have officially been discontinued, another popular Costco offering is being phased out as a year-round offering. Anonymous publishing executives told The New York Times earlier this year that Costco plans to stop selling books on a regular basis in 2025.
Books will only be available during the holiday shopping season from September through December, according to the executives. Costco may also stock books every now and then throughout the rest of the year, but they won’t be available consistently.
This change, per the Times, is partially because books require too much work to stock. However, many customers have voiced their dissatisfaction with the development.
“That’s a shame. The book section is always my first stop, yes even before the vino. I’ve bought many a book there cause they seem to always have something that appealed to me,” one shopper lamented on Reddit.
Combo Pizza Is Back (Sort Of)
Out of all the discontinued food court items that Costco shoppers want back, none boast quite as much hype as the combo pizza. This iconic pie—topped with veggies, pepperoni, and sausage—was retired to the dismay of members during the COVID-19 pandemic. It finally made its grand return in June this year, but as a take-and-bake pizza in the deli section rather than a food court menu item.
The new Combo Pizza has been spotted selling for $16.99, though prices and availability may vary by warehouse. Costco is also selling a take-and-bake Margherita Pizza alongside the combo version.
Rotisserie Chicken Packaging Switch
Beloved for their multitude of culinary uses and stubbornly low price of $4.99, Costco’s rotisserie chickens are the stuff of legend at the warehouse club. So it should come as no surprise that when Costco made a major change to its famous roasted birds, it became huge news in the Costco community.
In March, Costco began replacing the clear plastic containers it has long used to package its rotisserie chicken with plastic bags. An apparent internal memo posted on Reddit, which has since been deleted, indicated that the new bags would be more environmentally friendly than the old containers thanks to a 75% reduction in plastic.
Customers have had a lot to say about the new bags, with many complaining that they’re messier and less convenient than the old clamshell packaging.
A Change In Leadership
Costco’s leadership team has undergone a major shakeup this year. More than a decade after taking up the post in 2012, Craig Jelinek stepped down from the Costco CEO role on Jan. 1, 2024. Costco President and COO Ron Vachris, who has been working with the company for more than 40 years after starting out as a forklift driver, was elected to the position.
“Costco has a very strong culture and a deep bench of management talent,” Jelinek said in a statement when announcing his intention to step down in October 2023. “I have total confidence in Ron and feel that we are fortunate as a company to have an executive of his caliber to succeed me.”
Longtime Costco CFO Richard Galanti also stepped down stepped in March 2024 after nearly 40 years in the position. Gary Millerchip, who previously served as the senior vice president and CFO at Kroger, succeeded him in the role.
A Membership Price Hike
After foreshadowing plans to raise its yearly membership rates for over a year, Costco finally announced a long-anticipated fee hike over the summer of 2024. The increase took effect on Sept. 1, raising the price of Costco’s basic Gold Star membership tier from $60 to $65 and the price of the higher Executive tier from $120 to $130. Executive members will still receive an annual 2% reward on qualifying Costco purchases, but the company has raised the maximum reward from $1,000 to $1,250 due to the hike.
Though Costco had historically raised its membership fees about every five years and seven months, the company waited longer than usual this time around to give inflation some time to ease.
“We were very deliberate about the timing” Millerchip explained during a Sept. 26 earnings call.
Food Court Policy Changes
Though Costco’s policy on whether non-members are allowed to dine at its popular food courts seems to vary by location, certain warehouses have started to bar non-members from their in-store eateries in 2024. In early March, a member took to Reddit to share a photo of a sign they’d spotted at a Costco in Orlando, Fla. It read: “Effective April 8, 2024, an active Costco membership card will be required to purchase items from our food court. You can join today. Please see our membership counter for details.”
Then, in a March interview with Axios, Galanti revealed that all U.S. clubs with outside food courts would start requiring membership cards to make purchases come April 8. Outdoor food courts are more easily accessible to non-members, and Galanti said the policy change was due to the overly large crowds they tended to draw.
“One of the challenges is that some of the food courts have gotten so busy, particularly if it’s near some office buildings or construction sites,” he told Axios. “We were getting member complaints.”
In a separate yet notable change, a Redditor reported in March that their local Costco in a western Chicago suburb had revamped the food court ordering process. The shopper said that their food court had started requiring members to order from the self-service kiosks and then show their receipts to food court workers in order to have their food prepared. Previously, food court workers would be automatically notified about kiosk orders through a kitchen printer, freeing shoppers from the responsibility of showing their receipts.
Costco did not reply to our queries at the time regarding whether additional food courts will also adopt this ordering process, though several members responded to the Reddit post to note that their food courts have worked this way for some time.
New Membership Card Scanners
It’s no secret that shoppers are often required to flash their membership cards when entering Costco warehouses to prove that they’re permitted to shop there. However, the retailer is taking its membership checking efforts to a whole new level this year.
In January, Costco’s flagship warehouse near its headquarters in Issaquah, Wash., installed devices at its entrance that would scan membership cards and display members’ photos before allowing shoppers to enter. Since then, these scanners have been popping up at more and more Costco locations across the country.
While the reaction from shoppers has been divided—and some are worried that the scanners will cause extra congestion in warehouses—Costco says the devices have major benefits for members. The perks include giving Costco real-time customer traffic numbers, which it can use to open or close checkout lines as needed, Millerchip explained during a Sept. earnings call. He said this intel also helps Costco monitor whether it has enough of its fresh foods on shelves for customers.
Food Court Swaps
Costco’s crackdown against non-members isn’t the only major change taking place at food courts this year. The retailer is also making some significant updates to its food court menu.
Just before the end of 2023, Costco began rolling out a new Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie, which replaced the longstanding churro on the food court menu. Then in February, the retailer swapped its ever-controversial roast beef sandwich for a new turkey sandwich, only for the turkey sandwich to be replaced by a chicken and bacon sandwich in August. Like their roast beef predecessor, both new sandwiches faced some serious backlash from customers.
Yet another change to Costco’s food court menu came in late March, when shoppers spotted a new chocolate ice cream. While many Costco fans were happy to see the frozen treat arrive at the food court, others lamented that it replaced the popular strawberry ice cream, which had been racking up rave reviews since it debuted over the summer of 2023.
Fresh Sushi Is Coming to More Warehouses
Costco probably isn’t one of the places that comes to mind when you’re craving fresh sushi, but that could very well change in the near future. In June 2023, Costco’s Issaquah warehouse opened a brand-new Kirkland Signature Sushi department that serves freshly made rolls. Though some Costco locations already offer pre-prepared sushi from a third-party distributor—and Costco clubs in Hawaii and Japan have sold fresh sushi for some time—this was the first of such stations in the United States.
During a March 2024 earnings call, Costco executives revealed that they plan to expand Kirkland Signature Sushi to two additional locations. Though they didn’t specify exactly which warehouses, Galanti said the sushi would arrive at those clubs “in the very near future.” So keep an eye out just in case your local Costco is among the locations that will soon offer Kirkland Signature Sushi.
Price Decreases
Inflation may be slowing down in 2024, but viral trends like the 6-to-1 shopping method show that many Americans are still looking for ways to save at the grocery store. In great news for any budget-conscious Costco members, the retailer announced in March that it had lowered prices on several essential grocery items like batteries, reading glasses, beverages, and produce. Four-pound bags of frozen fruit, for example, dropped from $14.99 to $10.99, while 24-count packs of San Pellegrino water dropped from $16.99 to $14.99, Galanti said at the time.
Meanwhile, prices for 48-count packs of Kirkland Signature batteries went from $17.99 to $15.99 and reading glasses were discounted from $18.99 to $16.99. Galanti also said that many new sporting goods and lawn and garden items will be cheaper this year compared to 2023.
During a September earnings call, Millerchip announced price decreases for several additional products, including Kirkland Signature Fresh Boneless Skinless Chicken Tenderloins, Kirkland Signature Aluminum Foil, Kirkland Signature Macadamia Nuts, Kirkland Signature Baguette two-packs, Kirkland Signature Laundry Detergent Pacs, and Kirkland Signature Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
“Our goal is always to be the first to lower prices where we see the opportunities to do so,” Millerchip said.
A Massive Amount of Store Openings
The construction never stops with Costco. As is the case in most years, 2024 has brought another round of ribbon cutting both nationally and beyond.
Costco announced during a September earnings call that it opened 30 new warehouses during the 2024 fiscal year, a significant step up from the 23 openings it carried out in 2023. The United States, China, and Japan are among the markets that received new locations during the fiscal year, which runs from September through August for Costco. The retailer currently operates 891 warehouses worldwide and plans to open 29 locations during the 2025 fiscal year.
More App Improvements
Historically, Costco has not been at the forefront of technology, but the big box retailer has been working to step up its digital game. It has made several notable improvements to its app and website over the past year, such as rolling out a redesigned digital membership card, making its website search bar larger for easier use, and opening a digital optical store where customers can try on glasses and then order them for pickup.
Galanti said in December that “getting the foundation right” is the first order of business in improving its online services, but they’ll also focus more on “targeting and then personalization” over the next couple of years.
This past June, Costco took a huge step in its app improvement efforts by launching its long-awaited inventory search feature. Before then, shoppers who wanted to check whether a certain item was in stock had to either stop by the retailer in person or call their local club.
This story has been updated to include new entries, updated information, copyedits, and fact-checking.
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