At the San Francisco Costco, they don't let anyone in without a membership for any reason, at least without a huge argument. Food court? no. Have a gift card? no. Just buying liquor? no. Have an eye doctor appointment? no. I had to call the store, ask for manager, they then escorted me to the eye doctor where they watched me do the paperwork with the receptionist. Only then did they let off.
Alcohol as well, non-members can go in at buy that too.
> "It helps speed up the process," Richard Galanti, Costco's former chief financial officer, told Axios in January.
> "When you go through checkout, particularly self-checkout, there's not someone there having to review the card again," Galanti said.
As far as I can tell, it's not going to prevent reviews at checkout (unless there are scanners there), not to mention the card still needs to be used to tie the purchases to the member... it's not like they are going to be like Amazon Go. Even if it does speed up checkout, it will just move the slowdown from checkout to store entry, so it doesn't seem like anything is actually being saved.
Couldn't the POS pull up your picture when they scan the card? No idea if they do or not but would make sense.
There definitely is savings but I think you are reading it the wrong way. The ultimate goal here is to prevent people from using someone else's card. Costco makes all their money from the annual membership dues. I suspect they have tested this and there is savings with doing proper checks at store entry and saving the hassle of carts full of goods when denied at checkout. Ultimately driving more memberships.
My picture is on my Costco card and I have to hand it to the cashier when I checkout. I’m not sure what scanning on entry does that would eliminate that step.
Again your thinking is backwards. It’s not about entirely eliminating secondary checks it’s about moving the primary check to store entry which I would guess increases the checks effectiveness and reduces the chance of rejecting sales at the register. And ultimately reducing those above costs and maybe driving more memberships.
Nothing is being saved? Well from the store manager’s perspective, the only time being wasted now belongs to the customers, and isn’t any of his or his budget’s concern.