The Unspoken Rule Costco Customers Should Follow When Taking Free Samples

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There are several perks that come along with a Costco membership. But perhaps one the most universally cherished is the access it grants card holders to the store's wondrous world of free samples dispersed throughout the store. It can feel like a tasty little treasure hunt for shoppers. For Costco workers, however, this has given way to a much less glamorous iteration of the same game: one in which they are left to find the remnants of free samples littered across the store.

Perhaps it shouldn't need to be said that Costco card-carrying adults also need to throw away the trash they produce in their pursuit of sampling. And yet, the need to voice this unspoken rule continues to come up. Folks who think this behavior shows disrespect to Costco employees even started a Reddit thread dedicated to the subject.

One disgruntled commenter called those who leave litter around the store "entitled brats." As several shoppers pointed out, trash cans aren't typically hard to find in the store. Some locations even place one or two in every aisle. That being said, whether there's one trash can or 100 of them, not properly disposing of the waste you make is just one of those things you should never do in Costco (or any other store). One Redditor chimed in with a merciless suggestion: "Memberships should be more exclusive and revoked for the people doing this."

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It's not just Costco shoppers who have a problem with people leaving trash in the aisles after sampling. Costco employees are pretty disgruntled about the big mess that comes along with the free samples, too. In one Reddit thread, some workers aired their grievances about finding sample cups in unlikely places: stashed in watermelon and pumpkin bins, stuffed in shopping carts, and tossed atop store merchandise. "Stop throwing your sample trash in the clothes piles," one person wrote. "You sampled the new pasta sauce? Cool! But did you have to drop the cup in between the shirts?"

Leaving trash littered around Costco not only annoys the workers and adds to their workload, but throwing it on store merchandise could also make it less desirable to shoppers. According to Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business, a 2006 study conducted by researchers from ASU, the University of Alberta, and University of British Columbia found that many consumers are put off by goods deemed "contaminated." People can feel an item is tainted because other shoppers handled it and instead opt for the untouched merchandise at the back of the shelf or bottom of the pile. This occurs even when the front-facing product isn't damaged or compromised in any way. When sample cups with food remnants are left on piles of shirts or in shoe boxes, it may cause stains and foul odors that shoppers find unappealing, making them unsellable and creating more waste.