Costco Wholesale, the warehouse club giant has quickly built itself a positive reputation through is warehouse style business model and membership system that allows for unmatchable price points — not to mention the other various amenities and services that come included with a membership card.
Despite charging a slightly higher annual membership fee than that of rival, Sam’s Club, Costco has still managed to amass an enormous and loyal customer base and this was all made possible due to the company’s persistent commitment to expanding its offerings to meet every customers’ needs and wants. Although, sometimes the very application of this philosophy ends up being its undoing.
How does Costco operate its warehouses?
Cost-efficiency is a priority for the warehouse giant and in pursuit of this, the company is constantly looking for ways to better the membership experience whilst simultaneously keeping product pricing and membership fees low. The retailer’s entire philosophy is rooted around offering products at low prices and as such, if the warehouse is unable to offer a product at a price that they are content with, the product will simply not be carried in store.
For this very reason, the retailer only carries a total of around 4,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) despite the implication that a warehouse would carry a larger variety of products. In fact, a traditional supermarket is likely to carry up to seven times more product varieties. This strategic choice, coupled with membership fee revenue is what allows the company to maintain such low prices.
From a consumer perspective, however, this regular rotation of inventory is often viewed as something of a sore spot. Keeping prices low is priority number one for Costco and as such, sometimes products, regardless of popularity, will just disappear from shelves without so much as a prior warning.
A fair amount of the changes happens with the cult favorite food court found in store. Just last year, the popular churros were taken off the menu and replaced with an oversized chocolate chip cookie. In addition to feeling upset at the change, many customers also felt the $2.49 price point to be too high.
The Kirkland Signature giant mix-and-match six packs were swapped out for a smaller eight pack and the flavors were changed. Home bakers also mourned the discontinuation of the Kirkland brand chocolate chips. Additionally, long-standing Costco loyalists will also remember a time, years ago, when the warehouse stocked Kirkland deluxe American cheese slices.
This brings us to the latest discontinuation customers have noticed in store and they are not happy about it.
Popular Kirkland Signature product disappears
People with lactose intolerance and enjoyers of dairy alternatives alike were quite saddened to discover that the warehouse club was discontinuing its Kirkland Signature brand soy milk which was available in both regular and vanilla flavored iterations.
A Reddit user contacted the company directly to query the matter and in response, the company wrote, “Thank you for your feedback regarding KS soy milk. Unfortunately, KS soy milk has been discontinued due to low demand. However, we plan to add brand name soy milk as a rotating product throughout the year. The next rotation is planned for August.”
Many users on Reddit responded with surprise and sadness at this confirmation and the common sentiment appeared to be that the Kirkland soy milk was the best value for money option available on the market.
“My husband LOVES this soy milk, and we have been looking for it the last few trips! Very sad,” one user wrote.
“That’s terrible. I am in shambles right now. The price cannot be beat and I mix it with my protein shake daily,” another lamented.
Perhaps if enough customers share complaints about this, the retailer might feel inclined to bring the product back to its shelves, but that remains to be seen.