In many ways Costco has transcended its identity as a big box store and has become a full-fledged pop culture phenomenon. The retail giant is a constant source of internet attention which usually focuses on one of three things. First there’s the famous Costco food court items anchored by the beloved $1.50 hot dog deal and then of course there’s the inflation-proof $4.99 rotisserie chicken. Those two items alone have made Costco a fan favorite but the store’s biggest calling card has to be its free samples.
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 BabbleTop | 2019-06-16 20:31:28 |  914,748 Views |
10 Things You Didn't Know About Costco's Free Food Samples
Coscto’s free samples turn a boring grocery trip into a smorgasbord of unexpected delights. Each trip through the vast warehouse is fueled by handouts from friendly faces in hairnets and rubber gloves. They’re a big enough draw to spur web searches for the best times to get free samples at Costco and some shoppers have even weighed online whether they need disguises to get multiple samples.
There’s a twist to this story that you probably wouldn’t expect though. It would be logical to assume that the people handing out samples at Costco are Costco employees but that’s not the case. Despite this common misconception they are actually employed by a separate company that works exclusively with Costco to staff their tables with free samples. It may seem like a strange business model but it actually saves Costco money. However it does so at the expense of the employees themselves.
At most Costco locations the people handing out free samples are actually employees of Club Demonstration Services a company that is technically independent of Costco but acts as the department store chain's "exclusive in-house service provider" (via the CDS website). CDS was founded in 1988 five years after the first Costco location opened. Today the company is hiring for Costco locations in the United States Canada Mexico Australia New Zealand Spain France Sweden Japan Taiwan South Korea and China. Expect to see more regions added to this list in the near future as the company has steadily expanded.
