Costco members voice major shopping complaint | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

I’ll never forget the first time I walked into a Costco warehouse. Once I got through the bottleneck at the entrance, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of the store.

Roughly two hours later, I emerged from Costco with a loaded shopping cart and a larger credit card bill than expected.

These days, I do my Costco shopping more efficiently.

My goal is usually to run into the store, grab the items I need as quickly as possible, and avoid walking down aisles that don’t house products on my shopping list to avoid those all-too-famous Costco impulse purchases.

But even though I’ve been shopping at Costco for 20 years, there’s one issue that continues to trip me up. And it’s a problem members have been sounding alarms about more recently.

Costco members voice a major shopping complaint.

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Members bash Costco over poor aisle signage

You know how sometimes you don’t notice a person’s flaw until it’s pointed out to you?

Like, “Oh yeah, Bob does kind of chew loudly.”

Recently, a Costco member took to Reddit to complain about the fact that the warehouse club giant does not do a good job of labeling its aisles. And that set off a lightbulb in members’ heads.

Soon after, that thread was flooded with comments by Costco members who experienced the same frustration.

“You want a specific item found, you’re gonna need to go on a field trip while the employee also discovers where what you’re looking for is located,” said one user.

“They are constantly changing where everything is located so labels would be great,” said another.

Costco’s poor signage exists for a reason

It’s clear that Costco’s lack of clear signage is a point of contention for members.

As one Reddit user pointed out, “It feels diametrically opposed to the standardization that Target and other retailers do. I’m generally certain that if I go into a Target no matter where I can figure out where things are. There must be an advantage that Costco sees not to do that.”

But that Redditor actually hit the nail on the head.

A big part of the reason Costco’s doesn’t do a better job of labeling its aisles is that the company wants members roaming the stores to see what they’ll find.

Costco CEO Ron Vachris even owned up to that strategy on a recent company earnings call.

“You’ve heard the phrase, people come in to spend $100 and walk out with $300. That’s because our buyers and our operators do a great job in making the warehouses exciting.”

In fact, the “treasure hunt” approach has long been a part of Costco’s business model.

“We try to create an attitude that, if you see it, you ought to buy it because chances are it ain’t going to be there next time,” former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal told The Wall Street Journal in 2007.

Not only that, but Sinegal also confirmed that in an effort to drum up demand, the warehouse club will “constantly buy that stuff and intentionally run out of it from time to time.”

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So there you have it. There’s a reason Costco makes its aisles hard to navigate, and it’s to make sure members find those hidden products and buy them.

The good news is that the more frequently you shop at Costco, the more likely you are to learn your way around the store. But the above complaint is still a valid one.

It’s also a complaint that Costco is pretty unlikely to actually address, since getting lost in those aisles tends to make the company money.

Maurie Backman owns shares of Costco.