I love shopping at Costco but the upselling is getting ridiculous.  I went shopping this weekend and as I was checking out with $300 worth of food, a roaming clerk came by and scanned my card.  She started with the usual pitch, “Sir, can I ask you a question?”

I quickly replied, “No, I don’t want to upgrade.”

“But you’ve spent $3000 with us so far this year, you could be saving xxxx….”

I write xxxx because I mentally shut her out of my mind and didn’t listen to the rest of the sales pitch.   It was an offer to upgrade to “Executive” or “platinum” membership or whatever they call it now.   I get it almost every time I shop there now.

Oddly enough, even if I had been interested, there was no way in hell that I would have signed up then and there.

Why?

Because if I did sign up then and there, it would only ENCOURAGE the store to keep doing  things like this over and over and possibly expand it into other areas.   Once other companies found out how well this worked, they too would be encouraged to upsell at the check out.

Imagine dining at a fine restaurant and the hostess comes up to you and says, “Sir, we’ve checked our  records, and you like to dine at our steakhouse twice a week, if you sign up for our new “platinum carnivores card” you can save 10% on all your future steak eating visits.”  This would ruin an otherwise great dinner and really set me off to the point where I wouldn’t come back.

It’s really gone beserk.  I stopped shopping at Best Buy because of the continuous harassment to buy warranties, join the “points club”, buy additional software and accessories every time I stepped inside the store.  I haven’t shopped Best Buy in years for this single reason.

Despite my disdain for the upsell, I still love Costco because it’s the only place I can find high quality wine, food and other products under one roof.

Costco, if you’re readig this, lay off the pushy lady trying to upsell memberships, you’ve got that “executive” thingy plastered all over every wall in the store and I get reminders about it every month with my bill so I am already aware of it.  Thanks but no thanks.