Costco rarely makes big changes. 

Aside from its seasonal in-store merchandise and the sections where items rotate, the chain gives members a familiar experience.

It’s not that different shopping in a Costco (COST) now than it was in 1985. That’s intentional because change costs money and the warehouse club likes to spend as little as possible to keep shelf prices low.

Related: Costco makes a huge change members need to know about

And that in turn is why you don’t see much automation in the chain’s stores and why it still has a relatively minimal digital presence. Costco is about giving members the lowest prices, not about having robot-operated buy-online-pickup-in-store kiosks or drone delivery. 

In some areas, the chain has been rigid about not making changes. It has, for example, gone to extreme lengths to be able to sell a rotisserie chicken for $5. That’s an absurdly low price for what you get — an entire chicken — and the company had to buy a farm in order to keep its price at that level.

The chain has also famously promised it would never raise the price of its $1.50 soda-and-hot-dog deal. That one, of course, might be a little easier for the company to do given the relatively low cost of the menu items involved.

Costco has broadly been very protective of its food court menu. It rarely adds new items and it has almost never taken items away. 

That. however, appears to be changing: At some locations, the chain has been swapping out a fan-favorite sandwich for a new menu item.

Costco changes its menu 

When Costco added a $9.99 roast beef sandwich, the chain got hammered on social media over the price. It’s expensive by the brand’s standards, but it’s also a hefty sandwich that offers a lot of meat for the price.

That sandwich appears not to have been a hit because it’s already disappearing from the food court at some Costco locations. Now, its replacement has been spotted.

“New Food Court item coming soon! Turkey & Swiss Sandwich for $6.99. Comes with a roll, brown turkey, swiss cheese, sundried tomato spread, green leaf, and dijon. ETA is end of February,” Costco Insider reported.

The price point makes a lot more sense for the value-conscious retailer. 

Again, getting rid of an item at the food court has been an incredibly rare move for the chain. It recently also replaced its churro with a chocolate chip cookie, which has drawn mixed reviews from customers.

Costco is investing in digital

While Costco has generally not made changes to its operations, it has been investing in improving its digital offerings. Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who plans to step down later this year, spoke about it during his company’s fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.

“Good progress continues to be made with our [e-commerce], mobile, and digital efforts,” he said. “No big enhancements and changes to the site leading up to the holidays, mostly holiday prep. 

“We did have 100% site availability during Cyber Week. And sales for the five Cyber Days, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Cyber Monday were up year over year in the mid-teens.” 

The CFO also said more customers appear to be buying in to the digital changes.

“Our app downloads during the quarter were 2.75 million, so total app downloads now stand at 30.5 million, or a 10% increase during the quarter,” he said. And that’s after being over 40% increase in all of fiscal ’23 versus the prior year. 

“Our site traffic is approaching a half-billion, a just under 10% increase, and the average order value being up about 2.5%,” he added.

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