By Haley Kim
Have you ever wondered why your quick “in and out” Costco run for toilet paper suddenly turns into a multi-hundred-dollar, hour-long shopping spree—usually ending with a $1.50 hot dog combo at the food court? It’s a classic trap experienced by millions that I have fallen victim to alongside my mom more times than I care to admit. While it might feel like we all seriously need to work on our self-control (which is partly true), a large portion of our undying temptations with anything relating to Costco boils down to their engineered marketing strategy. Costco has spent decades refining a secret psychological playbook designed to lure your every step, keep you wandering through the aisles, and ensure that you spend far more time in the store than you planned.
The first and foremost aspect of their marketing strategy is their “loss leaders.” The $1.50 hot dog and soda combos and $4.99 rotisserie chickens have loyally stayed the same price since they were first introduced in 1985. With a whopping 157.4 million rotisserie chickens sold just in the last year, Costco has clearly shown that the food court is not its main profit driver but rather a “money loser.” Yet, even after countless suppliers fought to raise prices, Costco stubbornly continues to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve its famously low prices amidst rising inflation by creating its own original supply chain and farms. While these decisions sacrifice individual profits, it allows members to walk into the warehouse and find remarkably low prices on products that their family can rely on. By using cheaper food, Costco is able to create a shopping experience that makes customers feel like they’re buying it at an exceptional price and encourages them to return for more. And while Costco loses a significant amount with every bulk pizza request for someone’s 6th birthday party or family-sized hot dog order for the road trip, they are able to earn the trust and loyalty of long-term customers in exchange for their short-term profits.
But that’s just one of Costco’s many secrets. The real deal starts just as you walk into the store. As you scan your membership card at the entrance with the beautiful smell of chicken bake wafting into your nostrils from the food court (you know you’re going to buy that later), you enter a massive, seemingly never-ending warehouse of everything you could think of—men’s socks for just $10.99, diamond rings, Crest whitening toothpaste, a wide array of Champion hoodies—but never what you actually need. As you stroll through the endless aisles with your enormous cart looking for that one bag of asparagus, your eyes catch on those delicious chocolate covered almonds that would go perfectly as your late night snack. You see, Costco intentionally omits any aisle and floor signs and places all the most necessary items—dairy, meat, and produce—all the way in the back of the store, making you walk through the whole maze of tempting items that could so easily fill up your empty cart (that just so happens to also be exceptionally large). And that is exactly the point. Costco’s warehouse layout is meticulously designed to help you find exactly what you’re not looking for. Everything is randomized and every so often switched around so you never know exactly where to find one thing—except for the rotisserie chicken in the way back, of course. Next thing you know, by the time you reach for the bag of asparagus an hour later, your cart is already full of five million different snacks and clothes.
But at the end of the day, maybe the beautiful magic of Costco doesn’t just lie in their cheap hot dogs or perfectly engineered shopping traps. And while it might seem cliché to say this, I truly believe that it’s all those nostalgic family memories we’ve made in that huge store that keep us coming back—from forcing your siblings to get another food sample for you because you’ve already gone twice, to fighting to stroll the cart; Costco always has a way of making every shopping trip a little bit more adventurous. And even after knowing how Costco has mastered the art of getting us to spend more time than we planned, I will never be embarrassed to say that my “song of the sirens” will forever continue to be the magnificent Costco.