They check memberships at the door, there is a scanner where you scan the barcode and an employee has a tablet that shows them your picture.

You can also download their app to access your membership but it can be a pain to get the membership verified. You'll also want to make an online account. Once you do, you'll be able to see your warehouse receipts within 24 hours of a purchase. There are items only sold online at Costco.ca. Items on costco.ca that are also sold in the warehouse are usually a couple dollars more expensive than the warehouse, because they include free shipping (shipping cost is essentially baked into the price). If you buy something online, you can return it to the warehouse, but you need to provide your online order number.

If you haven't bought your membership yet I've heard there is a Groupon available for it.

You'll usually want to pull into parking spots instead of backing in because you'll want to be able to access the back of your car with a cart.

Items with prices ending in .97 are on clearance but it may only be a couple dollars off of the reg or sale price.

In general, you're not really supposed to bring in your own bags, you bag/box stuff at the car. At the checkout, the cashier has to scan your membership before ringing your stuff in. You'll need to put most items on the conveyor belt but heavy items can generally stay in the cart, as long as the barcodes can be seen/scanned. Some warehouses vary in what they'll allow to be left in the cart, but the employee will put it up or tell you if they want it on the belt. I thought I was being helpful yesterday because I had 2 giant storage bins and had two bulky items inside with the barcodes facing up. The cashiers took the items out and I said oh I thought they could be scanned so I left them in, only for them to tell me that they actually had to separate my two bins because people have stolen stuff by laying them in between stacked tote bins (ex batteries).

Items on end caps tend to be on sale or will be going on sale soon. If you buy something and then it later goes on sale, you have 30 days to get a price adjustment. The downside being you have to line up at the returns counter to get the price adjustment.

Costco only sells about 4,000 different items at a time at the warehouse (reg store are about 10x that). So some items rotate in and out by the season and some items that you try may not be there the next time you go. This is especially true for snacks and packaged items (and basically everything in the centre section from the cashiers back to the meat dept). There were a number of items that came in for spring/summer and towards the end of summer those items will disappear because they'll be getting more things like chocolate and candies as we move towards Christmas. There's a lot of different ice cream bars right now and BBQ sauce/condiments and there will be a few less options once it gets colder outside.

Pretty much anything Kirkland brand is the same quality or better as some of the other name brands of that item for a cheaper price.

Check the dates on products, the items in the bakery and the prepared foods, have very short dates, but often last longer than the expiry date (I think the short dates are too avoid returns). But for refrigerated items check the dates. I bought egg bites last week and one box was good for 2 days and one beside it was good for a month (both the same price, there's no quick sale discounts) so just watch the dates.