One of America’s top retailers, Costco, is making a change that will only benefit some consumers, and the rest will be stopped at the door. Recently, the retailer implemented a new policy, and the grace period officially ended on August 31, 2025. However, the benefits that come with this new policy are only for a select few, the retailer’s executive members. Many other non-executive members are unhappy about this and have even taken their unhappiness to social media.
New Policy Implementation
In June 2025, the new policy came into play in Costco, but consumers were provided with a grace period. Since the grace period came to an end on 31 August 2025, the new policy came into effect on September 01. This new policy will only benefit a select group of people, and these are the executive members of Costco. They will have access to an hour of morning shopping without other consumers being in the stores.
This exclusive morning entrance period has been under a grace period for a few months, The exclusive shopping window has been subject to a grace period, but it now came to an end. Yesterday, September 01, the consumers with the executive membership will be the only ones allowed in the stores for specific hours, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. each day. The hour is slashed to a 30-minute period on Saturdays, when all customers are allowed to enter the store from 9:30 a.m.
Costco’s different membership tiers
This powerhouse retailer has different types of membership tiers available for consumers to join. There is a membership fee that consumers will have to pay such as an amount of $65 for the Gold Star membership and the costlier $130 for the Executive membership. The retail chain also offers consumers a Business Membership for an annual fee of $65.
However, this tier, the Business Membership, is exempt from the extra shopping hour. It is important to note that each membership tier comes with its own perks, this exclusive a shopping hour. Also, the retailer made another benefit available and that is a $10 monthly credit for Executive members earlier this summer. Now, because this new policy only caters for the executive members, the other consumers may be stopped at the door.
The response of consumers
The hour earlier shopping window change is just one of the latest changes that has been implemented that affected Costco’s members. Consumers are divided when it comes to the recent move the retailer announce about changing from Pepsi to only Coca-Cola products.
The switch in the beverage, elicited a mixed response from consumers on social media specifically on Reddit. However, this change was finalized earlier in August where a complete takeover from Coca-Cola occurred and now it is appearing in Costco food courts across the United States. Consumers should take note of the fact that the Coca-Cola products will be available in all of Costco’s food courts by this fall.
In addition, the company used to serve Coca-Cola before it made the switch to Pepsi products in 2013. This change was mainly because of how expensive Coca-Cola is and the retailer made a $1.50 hot dog combo available. In order for this combo to be maintained and allow the fan favourite to be available at the same price, the retailer felt it needed to make the change. Pepsi is cheaper than Coca-Cola, but is it still a quality drink and therefore, the Coco-Cola drink was substituted with a Pepsi.
In January 2025, Costco made and announcement that it would get rid of the Pepsi products, and this would be in favor of President Donald Trump’s soda brand. This came as a surprise because the retailer was selling the competition’s products for over a decade. Many consumers were unhappy about this decision, because they all got used to drinking Pepsi with their fan favourite $1.50 hot dog combo.