Check out Costco’s newest sweet and salty sundaes
Costco’s iconic food menu is known for its savory items, but the new Sunday flavors will satisfy dessert lovers.
Like all items at Costco, the shopping cart is oversized. Shelby Blessy is different.
At 4 feet 11 inches tall, she cranes her head to peer over the top of her cart as she weaves through a sea of shoppers rushing back and forth through the crowded aisles, searching for products and sampling samples.
She often has to hit the brakes when people suddenly stop. Was it BBQ chicken mac & cheese and bacon? – or spinning a dime to scoop up a 25-pound bag of rice you left behind in the yen aisle.
“I’ve had people bump into me or trip me up who didn’t notice me,” said the 34-year-old teacher from Kansas City, Missouri.
To be fair, Blessy has accidentally run into a few shoppers. “They don’t mean to, but most of the time they bring it on themselves,” she said.
“There’s someone running at the same pace as you and you stop and look at the giant waterslide,” she says. “I’d like to see it too, but I’ll park the car and take a look.”
Welcome to Costco’s Thunderdome. Watch your step.
The Costco shopping experience is designed to be immersive, from the twinkling large screens at the warehouse entrance to aisle after aisle of tempting deals and bags. Even when you’re rushing to get toilet paper and milk, it’s easy to succumb to sensory overload. What was on my list? Where is my listing? Wait, are those seats for sale? Do I need a sheet?
“Costco is a very busy store, in part because it’s popular, but also because it’s a store where people shop very intensely, whether it’s exploring different categories, buying in bulk or stopping by to sample,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
Sanders said the “frenetic energy” inside Costco’s warehouses is also influencing the way people shop. Think of “Mad Max.” A shopping cart will appear.
The Internet refers to the condition plaguing some Costco shoppers as “cart tunnel vision.” This means you lose all situational and spatial awareness. On Reddit, someone coined the term “Meanderthals” because “we don’t know where they’re going, and neither do they.”
Apparently oblivious to their surroundings, shoppers walk in groups of four or five, pushing others around and surrounding them. Instead of going with the flow, walk in the wrong direction on aisles lined with tall pallets that limit visibility.
Some people pull over to admire the tiramisu cheesecake, but these shoppers double park or leave their carts in the middle of the aisle, blocking traffic. The traffic jams caused by shoppers crowding sample stations four or five people deep is next-level rage fodder on online Costco forums.
Plus, there are the small conflicts these distracting habits cause on a daily basis. These collisions, known as “bumper carts,” are so common that warehouse workers joke that Costco uses ankle skin to lubricate the wheels of shopping carts.
“You can get hurt if you’re not careful,” Costco shopper Tom Filine said.
Filine, 39, said slamming the brakes on a fully loaded Costco cart is like trying to stop a 500-pound tractor-trailer. His wife put him in charge of shopping at Costco because, as an elementary school physical education teacher in Aurora, Illinois, he’s used to dealing with “chaotic environments.”
“I have a very clean cart-pushing record. I’ve never had an accident. I’ve never hit anyone,” he said.
But there have been times when he’s had to fend off fickle shoppers. He likens traveling to Costco to driving in a foreign country with no traffic laws.
He almost hit a woman who rushed in front of him. Then she stopped and yelled at him.
“Everyone is in la-la land,” Philine said.
And that’s what drives Ajay Burchandani crazy. He argues that Costco shoppers don’t respect the unspoken “rules of the road” and should be required to take a shopping cart driving test to qualify for membership.
“I’m not sitting there working on my phone. When I have to park my cart, I make sure I’m not blocking any visible items that people need to access, or I’m parking it outside the aisle so I don’t get in anyone’s way,” said Burchandani, aka Ajax, a 53-year-old DJ from American Canyon, California. “People at Costco don’t have spatial awareness. They really do, after all. They just leave their carts wherever they want because it suits their needs. They don’t care about bothering other people.”
Ian Collins, a 39-year-old San Diego real estate agent, says every time he walks into his local Costco warehouse, it feels like Black Friday, even though he’s 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 245 pounds.
“It’s almost a 10 out of 10. My cart will get hit at least once, and two times out of 10 it will get hit,” Collins said. “As soon as you scan your membership card and it beeps, people go into wild mode.”
So he drafted some common sense shopping cart etiquette and shared it on social media.
Treat your cart like your own car. Please do not park in the middle of the aisle. Don’t bump into people. Please stay on the right side. Proceed at the same speed as the traffic. If you miss something, don’t go against the flow.
And the number one rule? “Please don’t make fun of me.”
