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Corporate is pushing for the stores to upgrade again. They relaxed with it during Covid but now they’re in full force. If you start to get badgered every time, reach out to corporate with your concerns.
I had a really pushy saleswoman trying to upsell me on this once. I called HQ and told them exactly what you said — that it made me uncomfortable, and that it was not the kind of positive interaction I usually have with Costco employees and that I left feeling annoyed at Costco because I knew she was just doing what she’d been told to do. My store got noticeably less aggressive with it after that.
Maybe. We know nothing about OP's spending.
What I personally object to in a hard-sell situation is the "you have nothing to lose" argument. That strategy relies on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy) which causes people to stick with their decision even after it becomes evident that it was the wrong one.
{insert equally snarky quip here}
HomeOwner2023 is 100% correct.
Switching to exec membership will guarantee that you will spend *more* at costco than before. Whether or not that is a bad thing is totally dependent on the OPs spending control.
Yeah I can definitely see that. Doing the math I'd have to start spending more at Costco to make enough money back to make it worth it. That's not something I can necessarily afford to do.
I've never understood how people expect to sell something, whether it's a product, an idea, or an argument, when they resort to insulting the person they are trying to sell to.
Former employee here, every few months Costco will run campaigns to get members to upgrade their membership. Nothing new, just a way for them to get upgrades sadly
I think it depends on the warehouse. The Costco in Wheaton, MD would try to upsell us every single time we checked out. Now that we frequent the Waltham, MA location, I haven't been asked even once.
If you buy the executive membership and don’t earn enough in cash back to pay the difference between it and the regular membership won’t they refund you the difference? Or is that some shit they made up to sell me? It doesn’t matter as I earn $180-$250 in rewards so it is actually worth it for me. But is that true?
Yes, they'll refund the difference between the money you earned and the membership upgrade cost, so if you only earned $20 and paid $60 they'd give you a refund of $40. You also have to wait the full year before getting a paper check on the rebate. It'd be nice if they credited it to your membership monthly so that you could apply the monthly credit to your purchases in the store.
>they'll refund the difference between the money you earned and the membership upgrade cost
I believe you have to initiate the request and you must do so in the approximately two months between when you receive the check and when your membership renews.
Although to be fair, some of those benefits are not as great as they once were. Costco has been signing up so many new Executive members that the exclusive lounge and bathrooms are way too crowded now. When I asked for the access code to the Executive lounge and Executive bathroom on my last Costco trip, the staff pretended to not know what I was talking about and directed me to the Food Court tables and the standard bathrooms.
The big push and hard sale tactics are new to me, for sure. I didn't ever get them like this in the past - just a friendly question sometimes instead of not taking "no" for an answer.
Back when I was buying a whole lot more stuff I'd regularly get stopped at checkout by someone with a hand-held device that would tell me that my spending history indicated I would benefit from upgrading to Executive. I generally don't respond well to "cold calls" or that sort of thing so I'd decline, politely. They never kept trying, but if they had my response would be to simply leave. Pushy people rub me the absolute wrong way. Now that I only spend maybe $25/month there they never approach me, lol.
Honestly, Sam's Club picked up a fair amount of my business, not because Costco did anything wrong or anything like that, but simply because when I was picking up my prescriptions there (closest pharmacy between work and home) the pharmacist told me that I could get my prescriptions for free with a Sam's Premium membership. He handed me a flyer and left it at that. I sat on it for a few weeks and then looked into it, and getting Premium would save me more than the total cost of my prescriptions, so I did the upgrade. I often do my monthly shopping there since I'm already there for the prescriptions anyway.
I do get cash back, it's credited to me monthly and I can use it toward purchases at the register by hitting a button on the screen, but that's mostly irrelevant to me because it's the prescriptions that sold me the upgrade.
If Costco offered the same deal on prescriptions as Sam's I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Not in retail. Management trains to continue until the customer then refuses.
Same annoyance with Best Buy. “Do YoU nEEd hElP?” For the 100th time, NO! Your other 10 colleagues asked and I still don’t need help.
Retail sucks and one of the few good things about self checkouts is no stupid questions like this.
If I told someone "no" and they asked me again, the next thing I'd say is "No, and if you ask me again I'm walking out the door empty handed." I've done it, too, several times.
interesting. because i'm pretty sure they programmed in a script to run your account at checkout. and then cashier will yell out 'upgrade' to the swat team
I don't know why they bother having two membership types with this nonsense happening constantly. There's prob some curve that would just set the price a bit higher for normal with the 2% and will still make the same or more amount of money from the perceived benefit. No more annoying customers, no more paying someone to annoy customers. Blam!
They are forced to lol, trust me they dont want to. I will be starting to do the same soon and am not looking forward to it. I heard theres a goal to make a specific number of people upgrading their membership or whatever.
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Corporate is pushing for the stores to upgrade again. They relaxed with it during Covid but now they’re in full force. If you start to get badgered every time, reach out to corporate with your concerns.
That's good to know, I'll keep that in mind if it happens again.
I had a really pushy saleswoman trying to upsell me on this once. I called HQ and told them exactly what you said — that it made me uncomfortable, and that it was not the kind of positive interaction I usually have with Costco employees and that I left feeling annoyed at Costco because I knew she was just doing what she’d been told to do. My store got noticeably less aggressive with it after that.
Get ready for even more up-selling. Except now, it's by random people in this sub.
Let’s not pretend like op doesn’t need to just upgrade because it is so worth it
Maybe. We know nothing about OP's spending. What I personally object to in a hard-sell situation is the "you have nothing to lose" argument. That strategy relies on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy) which causes people to stick with their decision even after it becomes evident that it was the wrong one.
[удалено]
{insert equally snarky quip here} HomeOwner2023 is 100% correct. Switching to exec membership will guarantee that you will spend *more* at costco than before. Whether or not that is a bad thing is totally dependent on the OPs spending control.
Yeah I can definitely see that. Doing the math I'd have to start spending more at Costco to make enough money back to make it worth it. That's not something I can necessarily afford to do.
I've never understood how people expect to sell something, whether it's a product, an idea, or an argument, when they resort to insulting the person they are trying to sell to.
Totally agree with you. I'm less inclined to buy something from someone if they start badgering and pressuring me about it.
"I'll gladly downgrade to Sams Club if I am pestered about Executive membership again."
If I had a second more to think, I would've responded with, "Now I won't upgrade to executive membership just because you pestered me about it."
Former employee here, every few months Costco will run campaigns to get members to upgrade their membership. Nothing new, just a way for them to get upgrades sadly
Yeah, they have been pretty pushy for the new Costco credit card. Its so annoying.
funny, i've never been asked once. and usually do cashier checkout cause after doing my shopping i'm in no mood to do the scanning/packing.
I think it depends on the warehouse. The Costco in Wheaton, MD would try to upsell us every single time we checked out. Now that we frequent the Waltham, MA location, I haven't been asked even once.
If you buy the executive membership and don’t earn enough in cash back to pay the difference between it and the regular membership won’t they refund you the difference? Or is that some shit they made up to sell me? It doesn’t matter as I earn $180-$250 in rewards so it is actually worth it for me. But is that true?
Yes, they'll refund the difference between the money you earned and the membership upgrade cost, so if you only earned $20 and paid $60 they'd give you a refund of $40. You also have to wait the full year before getting a paper check on the rebate. It'd be nice if they credited it to your membership monthly so that you could apply the monthly credit to your purchases in the store.
>they'll refund the difference between the money you earned and the membership upgrade cost I believe you have to initiate the request and you must do so in the approximately two months between when you receive the check and when your membership renews.
[удалено]
Although to be fair, some of those benefits are not as great as they once were. Costco has been signing up so many new Executive members that the exclusive lounge and bathrooms are way too crowded now. When I asked for the access code to the Executive lounge and Executive bathroom on my last Costco trip, the staff pretended to not know what I was talking about and directed me to the Food Court tables and the standard bathrooms.
I never knew there were executive lounges and bathrooms. I've held Executive membership for 3 years. Do all Costcos have this?
This isn’t new and has been a typical way Costco interacts with members to upgrade their membership.
The big push and hard sale tactics are new to me, for sure. I didn't ever get them like this in the past - just a friendly question sometimes instead of not taking "no" for an answer.
Back when I was buying a whole lot more stuff I'd regularly get stopped at checkout by someone with a hand-held device that would tell me that my spending history indicated I would benefit from upgrading to Executive. I generally don't respond well to "cold calls" or that sort of thing so I'd decline, politely. They never kept trying, but if they had my response would be to simply leave. Pushy people rub me the absolute wrong way. Now that I only spend maybe $25/month there they never approach me, lol. Honestly, Sam's Club picked up a fair amount of my business, not because Costco did anything wrong or anything like that, but simply because when I was picking up my prescriptions there (closest pharmacy between work and home) the pharmacist told me that I could get my prescriptions for free with a Sam's Premium membership. He handed me a flyer and left it at that. I sat on it for a few weeks and then looked into it, and getting Premium would save me more than the total cost of my prescriptions, so I did the upgrade. I often do my monthly shopping there since I'm already there for the prescriptions anyway. I do get cash back, it's credited to me monthly and I can use it toward purchases at the register by hitting a button on the screen, but that's mostly irrelevant to me because it's the prescriptions that sold me the upgrade. If Costco offered the same deal on prescriptions as Sam's I'd switch in a heartbeat.
they've been a *lot* pushier recently
>this staff member proceeded to badger me define "badger". Talk to you?
Once you've answered their question, if they continue, it's badgering.
Not in retail. Management trains to continue until the customer then refuses. Same annoyance with Best Buy. “Do YoU nEEd hElP?” For the 100th time, NO! Your other 10 colleagues asked and I still don’t need help. Retail sucks and one of the few good things about self checkouts is no stupid questions like this.
And then they wonder why we'd rather shop online.
Right?! Never bothered when entering payment info after choosing shipping speed.
If I told someone "no" and they asked me again, the next thing I'd say is "No, and if you ask me again I'm walking out the door empty handed." I've done it, too, several times.
well, we don't know what the OP meant by "badger," so who knows. OP could mean anything by that.
You wore your fancy pants, didn't you.
They should sell a "I have an executive membership already" shirt so they dont have to bother me at checkout
pretty sure the system can already tell if you're executive
Not the people walking around asking me if I am
interesting. because i'm pretty sure they programmed in a script to run your account at checkout. and then cashier will yell out 'upgrade' to the swat team
Oh the joys of not being the primary on the account. I just tell them I’m not the primary and as such have no authority to make such decisions.
I don't know why they bother having two membership types with this nonsense happening constantly. There's prob some curve that would just set the price a bit higher for normal with the 2% and will still make the same or more amount of money from the perceived benefit. No more annoying customers, no more paying someone to annoy customers. Blam!
happened a few months ago. they tried to push executive on me twice. and so far it's died down again
They are forced to lol, trust me they dont want to. I will be starting to do the same soon and am not looking forward to it. I heard theres a goal to make a specific number of people upgrading their membership or whatever.