Most people love the reasonable prices and more important the quality of customer service at Costco.
Instead of their competitors such as WalMart who prey on their employees and customers as victims,
Instead of their competitors such as WalMart who prey on their employees and customers as victims,
Costco actually give you the best bang for your buck.
This is not an ad for Costco but instead shares with you additional information of the secret price codes and what they mean, so that you can empower yourself to save even more money.
The price signs at Costco will clue you in to the best deals and help you save money shopping for "stuff".
Costco like many other stores, runs some of their merchandise at close out prices. Unfortunately they don't make it easy for the shopper to know which items are marked down.
Most of us have no idea which items are being sold at these lower prices. You can't tell by simply looking at the price sign on a product that it is a mark down, special priced item, rebate item, discontinued item or which items will not be replenished when the current stock is sold.
Photos From Costco
Most regular priced items have a 99 ending
Look for items that have a 97 ending, they are mark-downs.
Watch for odd pricing like those that end in a 79 or a 49 ending, they are special purchase items
Notice the different prices on this table. Which ones are the best deals?
Look to see if there is a * on the upper right side of the sign.
If you see one, it means this item is not being reordered.
Florida Store shows the original prices above before the mark-down.
When you visit your Costco store, pay special attention to the price signs for every item you see.
You will notice that most end with a 99¢ ending, this is the regular priced merchandise. You will also see some with a 79¢ ending, others a 97¢ ending and so on. In this article you will find out how to understand the codes in these prices so you can determine with are the best deals.
You are going to look for items that now have a 97¢ ending. Regular priced items usually end with a 99¢ ending but not always. However, the ones with the 97¢ endings are those items that did not sell and must be cleared out. They are marked-down, but unlike all other retailers, Costco doesn't like you to know this, so the don't put the original prices with a slash and then the new price as many stores do.
Look to see if there is a asterisk * on the upper right side of the sign. If you see one, it means this item is not being reordered and what ever stock they have in the store will be sold and not replaced. This is a tip off that it might be a marked down item, but not always, but it does let you know that once these are gone there will be no more.
Now you will watch for odd pricing like those that end in a 79¢ ending. You will also see they have others at 49¢, 89¢ and others. These usually mean that these items have a special price on them because Costco got a special deal from the manufacturer. In other words they were a special purchase and the buyers really killed their vendors for this price.
Items that are not selling as well as they should are a prime target for a mark-down. Costco will go back to the vendor (manufacturer) and request an allowance from them to enable them to reduce the price of those items. These will be the items to look for and usually the ones with the .97¢ endings.
Joe Carcello has a great job as the CEO of Costco. The 59-year-old has an annual salary of $52,700, gets five weeks of vacation a year, and is looking forward to retiring on the sizable nest egg in his 401(k), which his employer augments with matching funds. After 26 years at his company, he’s not worried about layoffs.
This wouldn’t be remarkable except that Carcello works in retail, one of the stingiest industries in America, with some of the most dissatisfied workers. On May 29, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) employees in Miami, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area began a week long strike. (A Walmart spokesman told MSNBC the strike was a “publicity stunt.”) Workers at an Amazon.com (AMZN) fulfillment center in Leipzig, Germany, also recently held strikes to demand higher pay and better benefits. (An Amazon spokesman says its employees earn more than the average warehouse worker.)
In its 30-year history, Carcello’s employer, Costco, has never had significant labor troubles. Most of it's employees seem happy and it is because the way they are treated, financially, emotionally.
Costco pays its hourly workers an average of $20.89 an hour, not including overtime (vs. the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour). By comparison, Walmart said its average wage for full-time employees in the U.S. is $12.67 an hour, according to a letter it sent in April to activist Ralph Nader.
Eighty-eight percent of Costco employees have company-sponsored health insurance; Walmart says that “more than half” of its do. Costco workers with coverage pay premiums that amount to less than 10 percent of the overall cost of their plans. It treats its employees well in the belief that a happier work environment will result in a more profitable company.
Is this anyway to run a Company Costco, yes, it treats its employees fairly, and sees it customers as the reasons for the financial success enjoyed by Corporate Costco whose shares have doubled in the last year on Wall Street.
It's that simple, success can be a win win situation for everyone without there be a rip off, slave, arrogant mentality by those who manage any business. Makes me wonder why most Corporations simply give phony "lip service" to this management ethic of treating your staff and customers like you would want to be treated.
