Costco’s membership fees are rising on June 1

Rising for the first time since 2011, Costco will be raising annual membership fees between $5 to $10 starting on June 1, 2017. Specifically, the Gold Star membership and Business membership will increase from $55 to $60 and the Executive membership will rise from $110 to $120.

In addition to extra benefits with Costco Travel and Costco Services, the Executive membership provides a 2 percent cashback reward on qualified purchases. Basically, if you spend $3,000 in qualified purchases over the course of a year, you will regain the additional $60 spend on upgrading from Gold Star to Executive. The maximum annual reward earning in a single calendar year is capped at $1,000.

During 2017, Costco expects the fee increase will impact 35 million members. Comparatively, Sam’s Club (owned by Walmart) charges $100 for Sam’s Plus annual membership and $45 for the basic Sam’s Savings or Business membership. Sam’s Club has 660 locations in the United States compared to Costco’s 508 locations in the United States.

Neither warehouse chain has to contend with Jet.com anymore, an online retailer that attempted to bring the warehouse subscription model to the Web. Jet.com pivoted to a subscription free model before being acquired by Walmart last year.

However, warehouse chains still have to compete with Amazon. Amazon has continued to push into the warehouse chain model by offering Subscribe-and-Save bulk items for repeat orders as well as Prime Pantry, a bulk-order system for purchasing common household items such as food or cleaning supplies.

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3 Comments

1. 

   bob

   March 9, 2017 at 7:20 am

   We did Costco for the first time last December – they’ve always been too far away but we drove an hour and wandered in.
   The store is well stocked but we were not happy with a few of the Costco brand items – a pack of chicken thighs that were funky smelling, and the canned chicken had the same problem. Too far to return, we’ll stick with BJ’s or Sams.

   Reply
2. 

   Vicki

   March 5, 2017 at 5:40 pm

   I think they should not raise anything. Seniors like to shop there but can’t buy that much stuff, and don’t have a whole lot of money for the fees. It’s not like they go that often. Their prices are high enough, and they have things that people consistently buy and then drop it and put up something that is horrible, and way too big packaging.

   Reply
3. 

   BlueOak

   March 3, 2017 at 3:01 pm

   Costco is crossing over into decision time for us. We have both SAMs and Costco memberships.

   Item pricing at both is within pennies.

   But SAMs pays 5% back on gas vs Costco @ 4%.

   And SAMs now has the amazing Scan and Go app that means zero checkout line waiting – simply walk straight to the door.

   Costco has two negatives:
   1) Crazy package size growth – who the heck needs a 72 pack of AA batteries?

   2) And Costco gets you hooked on a product, only to drop it months later.

   Reply