Costco to clamp down on sharing of membership cards

A Costco spokesperson emphasized that the company’s policy isn’t changing, as the it always required membership cards at checkout. With the rise of self checkout, however, the company has noticed non-members using cards that don’t belong to them.

“We don’t feel it’s right that non-members receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” a Costco spokesperson said.

The company indicated on its last earnings call that it was likely to hold off on increasing its membership fees, even as an analyst suggested Costco would appear to have room for a hike.

See more: Grocery prices are still going up, but Costco membership fees aren’t — for now

“Our view right now is that we’ve got enough levers out there to drive business,” Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said on the earnings call, although his view is that Costco would be able to increase fees if it wanted to without meaningfully crimping renewal or signup rates.

Costco offers Gold Star and Business memberships for $60 each annually, as well as an Executive membership that costs $120. That higher tier of membership gives consumers a 2% reward on qualifying purchases from the company, among other benefits.

Costco joins Netflix Inc.
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in clamping down on what the companies see as an abuse of membership privileges. The streaming service has moved recently to rein in account-sharing by viewers in different households, requiring either that freeloaders pay for their own accounts or that account holders pay extra to add additional viewers.

Netflix’s initiative seems to be having the desired financial effect, initial third-party data points indicate.

See also: Netflix stock rally builds as company wins cheers for password-sharing success

Read: Netflix could be looking at a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’

Bill Peters contributed.