If you love free samples [1], discounts, and buying items in bulk, chances are you're a Costco shopper [2]. The company has been around for decades, so there's some truly interesting (and shocking) facts about the store that will even surprise avid customers. Check out these 11 little-known things for yourself!
The layout for all Costcos is known as the racetrack.
The carefully designed racetrack [3] was created so that customers would be able to pass all the items in the store.
You can buy caskets at Costco.
The store has a whole emergency supply section where you can buy items like coffins [4] and urns.
Costco buys 50 percent of the world's supply of the most popular cashew.
Yes, Costco basically has half the world's supply of cashews, selling $300,000 of them every week [5].
Costco is considered one of the biggest pizza chains in the country.
You probably don't think of Costco as a pizza chain, but there's only a few chains (like CiCis) that are bigger than it.
The brands offered at Costco constantly change.
This is because the store buys from whichever name brand company overproduced that month [6].
The idea for Costco was written on a napkin.
When Costco was first starting out as warehouse discount store Price Club, founder Sol Price drew the whole concept for it on a napkin [7].
Costco puts all its fresh food in the back of the store for a reason.
It's designed to have you walk through all the other merchandise before getting to the groceries.
The apple pie from the film American Pie was purchased from Costco.
Yeah, that pie [8] is a Costco purchase.
The Costco hot dog and drink combo has been a $1.50 since 1983.
The price has not changed since the store opened.
There are no signs or maps to be found inside Costco.
This is strategic — it's planned to have you look around and discover new items.
Over 90 percent of customers renew their memberships each year.
That's some serious customer loyalty.