What The Little Star On Costco's Price Tag Actually Means

(KMDL-FM) If you're a savvy shopper and you live in Louisiana, chances are you're a member of a warehouse club. The two most popular are Sam's Club and Costco. Sam's Club has 14 locations in the state. Costco has four warehouses that it operates in Louisiana. But only Costco has the "Death Star," and only the savviest of the savvy know what that means and how to find it.

Where Are Costco Stores in Louisiana?

The four Costco Stores in Louisiana are located in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Covington, and Lafayette. Regular customers have come to depend on the warehouse club for savings on staple items such as milk, bread, cereal, and the like.

Costco will always have those kinds of staple items in store, but much of their other inventory will rotate. Sometimes when they rotate a product out of the available inventory, it leaves consumers in a bit of a lurch.

Say, for example, your family loves a certain spaghetti sauce and then suddenly it's no longer available. Had you known the product was going to be discontinued, you might have purchased extra and stocked up, but nobody told you; you didn't know.

How Do You Find Costco's Death Star?

But maybe someone did tell you; you just didn't know where to look. That is where the "Death Star" of Costco comes into play.

If you look closely at the large white price sign next to the product. If that sign has a small asterisk (*), in the upper right-hand corner, then you've found the "Death Star," and there is a good chance that product will no longer be available in the near future.

Now that doesn't mean the product is gone from Costco shelves forever; it could be just going on hiatus, as we mentioned Costco runs a limited inventory strategy to keep costs down and they like to keep the selection fresh, that product migth returen to Costco shelves in three months or so, but the "Death Star" is a sure sign that you might want to stock up.

Or if you just want to never visit a Costco again, you could do these things, but honestly it's simpler to just not go than to go, act the donkey, and get kicked out.