Costco shoppers are spotting something unusual on warehouse shelves this month: prices that are actually falling.
After two years of grocery inflation that pushed rotisserie chickens, olive oil, and paper towels higher, the warehouse giant is quietly cutting prices on dozens of everyday items.
The catch is that most of these deals aren't advertised anywhere.
The most reliable signal is the price tag itself.
Costco marks down merchandise with a price ending in .97, which means the item is on clearance at that specific warehouse.
Items ending in .00 are manager specials, and anything with an asterisk in the upper right corner is not coming back.
Those three codes are the closest thing the store has to a secret menu, and they change daily by location.
Some of the sharpest current cuts are in categories where prices had climbed the most.
Shoppers are reporting Kirkland Signature coffee, laundry detergent, and frozen seafood down 15 to 25 percent from their 2023 peaks.
Costco's buying power lets it renegotiate with suppliers faster than traditional grocers, and those savings tend to show up on shelves before they show up in ads.
Big-ticket items are also getting slashed.
Patio furniture, summer apparel, and seasonal kitchen gadgets typically drop hard in late summer as warehouses clear floor space for holiday inventory.
A patio set listed at $1,299 in June has been spotted at $699 in some locations.
Furniture is bulky, so managers are motivated to move it fast rather than store it.
There's a strategic reason Costco can do this while competitors hold firm.
The company makes most of its profit from membership fees, not product margins.
That gives it room to run thinner markups on goods and still post strong results.
Rival grocery chains, which depend on product margins, can't match that math without hurting earnings.
For households watching every dollar, a few habits capture the most savings.
Check the Costco app before a trip, since warehouse inventory varies by store.
Shop midweek mornings when markdowns get applied.
And if you see a .97 tag on something you buy regularly, buy two, because clearance pricing rarely lasts past the next truck delivery.
Costco's everyday prices on bulk items are already low, so a modest discount on a 40-pack of something you'll never finish isn't savings, it's waste.
The real wins come from markdowns on items already on your list.
Membership math also deserves a second look.
The Gold Star fee rose to $65 and Executive to $130 last year, but Executive members get 2 percent back annually.
If you spend more than $3,250 a year at Costco, the upgrade pays for itself.
Below that, the basic card is the better deal.
The bigger picture matters for anyone tracking grocery costs.
Costco's price cuts are an early signal that food inflation is cooling at the wholesale level, even if your local supermarket hasn't gotten the memo yet.
Warehouse clubs tend to move first because they renegotiate contracts more aggressively and carry fewer products.
Watch for these markdowns to accelerate into fall, when seasonal goods and back-to-school merchandise hit clearance at the same time.
That overlap is usually the best window of the year for non-food bargains.
The takeaway is simple: Costco's best deals were never in the flyer.
They're on the shelf, in the fine print of a price tag, waiting for shoppers who know what .97 means.
Final Thoughts
Learn the codes, check the app, and treat every asterisk like a countdown clock.