Costco is the wholesale retail store known for selling just about anything, from rotisserie chickens to brand new electronics, at a bargain price. Now, the wholesaler has added an unexpected item to its inventory: gold bars.
Yes, the bargain brand is currently selling one-ounce gold PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan bars for nearly $2,000.
On 26 September, Costco chief financial officer Richard Galanti announced in a quarterly earnings call that the gold bars are selling fast too. “I’ve gotten a couple of calls that people have seen online that we’ve been selling one-ounce gold bars,” he said, according to CNBC. “Yes, but when we load them on the site, they’re typically gone within a few hours and we limit two per member.”
The 24-karat gold bars can indeed be purchased online but they’re only reserved for customers with a Costco membership, which can cost from $60 to $120 a year. The retailer is also limiting the number of gold bars to two per membership, and the item is non-refundable.
According to the Costco website, the one-ounce bars from South Africa’s Rand Refinery are selling for the whopping price of $1,949.99, while the gold bars from Swiss supplier PAMP Suisse cost $1,979.99.
Costco has long held the well-deserved reputation as bargain shoppers’ favourite store, mainly for its affordable prices and free samples. Plus, the company recently raised its minimum wage to $16 for workers in the US.
In 2021, an employee named Natalie went viral on TikTok when she revealed just how much she makes per hour while working at Costco. “When you make $29.50 just to draw smiley faces on receipts,” said Natalie in the video. Some TikTok users said that Natalie’s pay was more than that of many other jobs, including healthcare workers.
“Ma’am I am a nurse and you make more than I did at my staff job,” one person commented.
“Costco is one of the few places one can earn a living wage. This should be the rule, not the exception,” another user wrote.
Not only did Natalie reveal that she makes much higher than the federal minimum wage in the US, which is $7.25 per hour, but she also reminded people about the joy of receiving a smiley face stamp from a Costco employee when checking a shopper’s receipt.
Earlier this year, another employee went viral on TikTok when she explained how her life has improved after quitting her teaching job to work at Costco. “Everything is better,” she said in the viral TikTok. “I can’t believe that I ever felt so limited, that I ever thought I couldn’t do something else. I am better now than I have been in my livable memory.”
The Costco employee also emphasised how much her professional life has improved, despite the fact that she doesn’t have winter or summer breaks like she did as a teacher.
“This is my first year not having a winter break. I do not miss it at all,” she wrote in the TikTok caption. “My pace of my work life now is so much better, I am not sick or exhausted like I used to be when I was a teacher.”
