5 Secrets Costco Employees Don’t Tell Florida Shoppers

Costco runs a warehouse in south Orlando with no food court, no tire center, and candy sold by the carton.

Many members have no clue about it.

The staff behind Costco’s counters have more little-known tidbits like this one up their sleeves.

1. Prescription Card

Your Costco card doubles as a prescription discount card.

Costco charges nothing extra for it.

The Costco Member Prescription Program lowers the counter price for members without drug coverage.

It covers pet prescriptions too.

Costco lets a member list a pet as a dependent, the same way a spouse goes on the program.

The lower price then applies to many of the medications a veterinarian prescribes.

Hand the pharmacist the same card you show at the door.

There’s no form to fill out.

2. Generators Before the Cone

Order a whole-house generator through Costco in May, and installers finish the job in a few weeks.

But wait until forecasters put a cone over Tampa Bay, and that same installation can take months.

Installers book out fast.

Many Costco warehouses keep a kiosk near the front doors for special orders the aisles never carry.

The list runs to standby generators, garage doors, heating and air conditioning systems, water heaters, gutters, and closet build-outs.

Members order at Costco pricing, and a contracted installer does the work.

You’ll wait just as long on an air conditioning replacement in August, when every crew in the county has already filled its calendar.

3. Orlando’s Other Costco

Florida has exactly one Costco Business Center, and it sits on Waterbridge Boulevard in south Orlando.

Do you need a business license to walk in?

A tax identification number?

Nope. Neither.

Your regular Costco card gets you through the door.

Inside, you’ll find case-packed food, restaurant supplies, cleaning chemicals, office paper, candy by the carton, and coolers deep enough to walk into.

What’s missing is the food court and the tire center.

Business delivery runs out of the same building, which is how a Kissimmee cafe restocks its coolers without closing for the morning.

4. Costco Next

Costco Next is a storefront many members never open, and Costco keeps it off the warehouse floor entirely.

Sign in with your membership, pick a supplier, and you buy straight from the brand at a member price.

That supplier ships the order, processes the return, and answers the phone.

Costco just makes the introduction.

The lineup runs to mattresses, outdoor lighting, luggage, pet gear, and cookware, much of which your warehouse has never stocked on a pallet.

Nothing on it moves through a Florida warehouse.

So a member in Marathon or Sebring shops the same lineup as somebody parked outside the Sarasota warehouse.

Let the membership lapse, though, and you lose access to every supplier on it.

5. Ask at the Membership Counter

Costco drops prices on things it already sold you, and nobody calls to tell you.

You have to ask.

Take the item number to the membership counter.

An employee pulls up the purchase and refunds the difference.

You don’t need the paper receipt, since Costco keeps two years of warehouse purchases in your online account.

The window runs 30 days from the purchase date.

For anything bought on Costco.com, that request goes through a form instead of a counter.

So a patio set bought in Bradenton on July 20 still qualifies in the middle of August, as long as you go back and ask.

Costco's 192 Acres in Port St. Lucie

Costco and a development partner bought 192 acres in Port St. Lucie for a distribution depot, set along I-95 in the Southern Grove corridor.

It goes up as two buildings, not one.

The first is a 595,000-square-foot cold and dry storage warehouse, and the second a dry goods building of 1.06 million square feet.

The site was still under construction in July.

City officials say the depot will serve as the distribution center for the whole state, and Costco is giving up its West Palm Beach distribution center in the move.

A depot sells nothing.

Trucks roll in, crews sort the freight by destination, and the same crews load it back out within a day or two.

Nothing sits still.

Costco expects to employ about 500 people there once both buildings run.

Costco's Next Two Florida Stores

Costco isn't finished building in Florida.

Port St. Lucie agreed in March to sell Costco 22.8 acres beside the depot for $6 million, and the plan calls for a 170,000-square-foot warehouse and a gas station.

Residents asked for years.

Sanford takes the other, where Costco is replacing the old Macy's at Seminole Towne Center with a warehouse due in early 2027.

That plan fills the old department store footprint with about 156,000 square feet, a gas station, and 847 parking spaces.

What Costco Pays Its Warehouse Staff

The Costco employee steering a pallet jack past you sits somewhere on a set pay scale.

Costco moved top-of-scale clerks to $31.90 an hour in March 2025, with another dollar added in March 2026 and a third due in March 2027.

Top-of-scale assistants started that stretch at $30.20.

Clerks entering the scale make $21.

The three-year agreement behind those numbers covers hourly employees across the United States and Canada.

Costco added vacation time for first-year employees too, and it hands anyone who reaches 30 years an extra week off.

That comes to six weeks.

What Costco Won't Take Back

Staff at Costco's return counter take back a mattress somebody slept on for a year, so members assume everything comes back.

A short list never does.

Gold bullion sits at the top of it, and Costco marks the sale final the moment you leave with the bars.

Costco sells them one ounce at a time, holds members to a few units a day, and won't adjust the price later either.

Cigarettes and alcohol go back only where state law allows it.