Quick Answer: Costco has quietly shut down Costco Next, the members-only online marketplace that offered up to 40% off products from a curated list of third-party vendors, including camping gear, electronics, luggage, home goods, and even caskets. The service disappeared from Costco’s website around August 31, 2026, with no advance announcement to members. Visitors to CostcoNext.com are now met with a message stating “Access to Costco Next storefronts is no longer available,” directing shoppers with return or warranty questions to contact the relevant vendor directly rather than Costco. The company has not publicly explained why it ended the nearly decade-old program, even though Costco Next’s quarterly sales had reportedly matched its entire 2022 fiscal-year sales as recently as May 2025.
In This Guide
- What Was Costco Next?
- What Happened, and When
- The History of Costco Next
- Why Members Loved Costco Next
- Why Did Costco Shut It Down?
- What to Do About Pending Orders, Returns, or Warranties
- Alternatives for Members
- What This Means for Costco’s E-Commerce Strategy
- Part of a Broader Pattern of Costco Discontinuations
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Was Costco Next?
Costco Next was a members-only online marketplace, conceptually similar to Amazon’s third-party seller model, that let Costco members shop a curated selection of products from hand-picked vendor partners. Unlike Costco’s own warehouse inventory or standard online store, Costco Next products were sold and fulfilled directly by the partner brands, but only accessible to people with an active Costco membership, and typically priced at a discount versus buying from those same brands elsewhere.
The catalog was unusually broad for a retailer known primarily for bulk groceries and household staples. Costco Next storefronts featured discounted camping gear, home goods, luggage, electronics, bicycles, and, in one of its more unusual categories, caskets. Nino Garcia, assistant general merchandise manager at Costco Next, has said the concept was born in 2016 and took several years to fully materialize as the retailer refined the program before it scaled up.
Structurally, Costco Next worked more like a curated storefront directory than a traditional marketplace. Rather than listing every product a partner brand sold, each vendor operated its own dedicated storefront within the Costco Next section of the site, giving members a sense of browsing a specific brand’s catalog rather than sorting through an undifferentiated pile of third-party listings, a distinction Fast Company highlighted as central to the program’s appeal.
What Happened, and When
The shutdown appears to have taken effect around August 31, 2026. According to Fast Company, shoppers visiting CostcoNext.com in the days before found the site no longer operating as expected, and it’s since been replaced with a terse notice. The message reads, in part: “Access to Costco Next storefronts is no longer available. Please refer to the list below for contact information for vendors with active return policies. For eligible returns and warranty inquiries, contact the vendor directly,” followed by a long list of participating brand names and their contact details.
What’s notable, and what’s driven much of the member frustration, is the complete lack of advance notice. Costco did not send an email, post a notice on its homepage, or otherwise warn members that the marketplace, which had operated for nearly a decade, was being discontinued. Members simply discovered it was gone when they went looking for it.
The History of Costco Next
Costco Next launched in 2016 as an experiment in expanding Costco’s product selection beyond what could realistically fit in a warehouse or its standard e-commerce catalog. The pitch to vendors was straightforward: gain exposure to Costco’s massive, loyal membership base in exchange for offering existing customers deals on products.
By most measures, the program was gaining momentum rather than fading. During Costco’s third-quarter 2025 earnings call on May 29, 2025, executives noted that Costco Next’s quarterly sales had grown to match the platform’s entire sales total for the full 2022 fiscal year, a significant acceleration for a marketplace that had operated quietly in the background of Costco’s core business for years. That detail is part of why the shutdown caught so many members, and retail industry watchers, off guard: it wasn’t an underperforming program being quietly wound down, it was one that appeared to be scaling successfully.
The nearly ten-year gap between Costco Next’s 2016 launch and its 2026 shutdown also means an entire cohort of Costco members joined the company, built shopping habits, and became loyal to the program without ever experiencing a version of Costco that didn’t include it. For those members in particular, the sudden disappearance represents more than the loss of a discount program; it’s the removal of something they’d come to treat as a standard, permanent part of their membership.
Why Members Loved Costco Next
For bargain-focused shoppers, Costco Next filled a specific gap. Fast Company described the marketplace as a curated collection of products selected by buyers for quality and customer service, distinct from the sprawling, algorithm-driven catalogs of general marketplaces like Amazon. Members got access to brands and product categories that might never appear in a physical Costco warehouse, often at prices below what those same brands charged on their own websites, discounts reportedly reaching up to 40% off in some cases.
That combination, curated brand selection plus member-exclusive pricing, made Costco Next a frequently recommended “hidden perk” among Costco enthusiasts and personal finance writers covering lesser-known membership benefits. Its removal has been described by affected shoppers as “a real bummer for the deals,” reflecting how integrated it had become into some members’ regular shopping habits.
Part of the appeal also came from trust. Because Costco vetted which brands could open a Costco Next storefront in the first place, shoppers browsing the marketplace could reasonably assume a baseline level of quality control that isn’t guaranteed on open marketplaces where nearly any seller can list a product. For members already paying an annual membership fee for access to Costco’s warehouses, Costco Next functioned as a kind of bonus layer on top of that existing trust relationship, rather than a separate service they had to evaluate independently.
Why Did Costco Shut It Down?
As of this writing, Costco has not issued a public statement explaining the decision, and multiple outlets covering the story, including Fox Business and TheStreet, have noted the company’s silence on the matter. That leaves several possible explanations in the realm of informed speculation rather than confirmed fact:
- Internal restructuring: Retailers periodically consolidate or simplify their e-commerce operations, and a members-only marketplace running semi-independently from Costco’s main website may have become harder to justify from an operations standpoint even while growing.
- Vendor or partnership issues: Marketplace models depend on maintaining agreements with multiple third-party sellers; a shift in those partnerships, pricing terms, or logistics could prompt a broader wind-down.
- A pivot toward direct warehouse and Costco.com sales: Costco’s core business, and much of its recent sales growth, comes from its own warehouses and directly-run digital storefront rather than third-party marketplace sales, which may factor into internal resource allocation decisions.
Without an official explanation from Costco, readers should treat any specific reason offered by outside commentators as speculation rather than confirmed fact. What is confirmed is the timing and the lack of advance notice, not the underlying business rationale.
What to Do About Pending Orders, Returns, or Warranties
If you purchased an item through Costco Next before the shutdown and need a return, exchange, or warranty service, Costco’s guidance is clear: contact the vendor directly rather than Costco itself. The company’s updated support page includes contact information for vendors with active return policies, organized by brand. Since Costco Next functioned as a marketplace connecting members to independent sellers rather than Costco acting as the direct retailer, the individual vendors remain responsible for honoring applicable return and warranty terms regardless of the marketplace’s shutdown.
If you can’t locate contact information for a specific vendor, Costco’s general member services line may be able to point you toward the appropriate resource, though standard Costco customer service may have limited ability to directly process a Costco Next-specific return.
Alternatives for Members
With Costco Next gone, members looking for similar deals have a few remaining options within Costco’s ecosystem, along with some outside it:
- Costco.com’s standard online catalog still carries an expanded product range beyond what’s available in warehouses, though without the specific vendor-curated discount structure Costco Next offered.
- Costco’s monthly coupon books continue to offer manufacturer and Costco-specific discounts on items sold directly through the company, including the return of periodic Costco Shop Card promotional deals.
- General marketplaces like Amazon may carry some of the same third-party brands that were previously featured on Costco Next, though without the membership-exclusive pricing structure.
- Checking directly with former Costco Next vendor brands for their own ongoing sales or loyalty programs, since several maintained direct relationships with customers independent of the Costco marketplace.
If you’re generally interested in tracking retailer policy changes that affect how you shop and pay, it’s also worth reading our coverage of Walmart’s Apple Pay rollout, another example of a major retailer adjusting its digital shopping experience in ways that directly affect members and customers.
What This Means for Costco’s E-Commerce Strategy
The Costco Next shutdown comes at an interesting moment for the company more broadly. Costco reported a 9.9% jump in August 2026 net sales and double-digit growth for its fourth fiscal quarter, with its stock trading close to its highs for the year. That backdrop makes the Costco Next decision harder to read as a simple cost-cutting move tied to broader financial struggles, since the core business appears to be performing well by most conventional measures.
Instead, the shutdown may reflect a narrower strategic choice specific to how Costco wants to run its digital operations going forward, rather than a signal about the company’s overall health. Costco has increasingly emphasized its “digitally-enabled” sales metric in recent earnings reports, a category that includes e-commerce orders fulfilled through both distribution centers and physical warehouses. It’s possible the company is consolidating its digital strategy around that unified metric and its own directly-run online store, rather than maintaining a separate, semi-independent third-party marketplace running in parallel. That kind of consolidation is a common move for large retailers looking to simplify technology infrastructure, customer service workflows, and vendor management, even when the program being cut is performing reasonably well in isolation.
Costco’s upcoming full earnings report, expected September 24, 2026, may offer more context if executives choose to address the Costco Next decision directly, though companies don’t always comment on discontinued programs even when asked. Analysts covering the call are likely to ask about the shutdown given the level of member and media attention it has generated in the days since.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Costco Discontinuations
Costco Next’s abrupt exit isn’t the first time the company has removed a member-favorite offering without extensive fanfare. Costco has a well-documented history of discontinuing beloved products and services over the years, from Kirkland Signature chocolate chips and Country French bread to food court churros, jumbo bakery muffins, and Kirkland soy milk. In several of those cases, Costco has offered little public explanation beyond standard supply chain or vendor-related reasoning, and it doesn’t always attempt to replace a discontinued item with something comparable.
Costco’s approach in these situations tends to reflect the company’s broader operating philosophy: a lean, high-turnover product and program lineup where the company is willing to cut something even if a segment of loyal members is upset, rather than maintaining every popular offering indefinitely regardless of its strategic fit. Retail analysts have noted this pattern gives Costco flexibility that many competitors lack, though it also means members generally shouldn’t assume a given perk, program, or product is permanent simply because it’s popular or growing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Costco Next completely gone?
Yes. As of around August 31, 2026, Costco Next storefronts are no longer accessible. Visitors to CostcoNext.com are redirected to a notice stating the service is no longer available.
Did Costco give members advance warning about the shutdown?
No. Multiple reports indicate Costco did not notify members in advance. Shoppers discovered the marketplace was gone only when they tried to visit it directly.
What should I do if I need to return something I bought on Costco Next?
Contact the original vendor directly. Costco’s support page lists contact information for participating vendors with active return policies, since those third-party brands, not Costco itself, are responsible for handling eligible returns and warranty claims.
Why did Costco shut down Costco Next?
Costco has not publicly explained the decision. The shutdown is notable because the marketplace’s sales appeared to be growing, with its Q3 2025 quarterly sales matching its entire 2022 fiscal year total, making the timing harder to explain as a response to poor performance.
When did Costco Next launch?
Costco Next launched in 2016, giving members access to a curated selection of discounted products from third-party vendor partners not otherwise sold in Costco warehouses.
Are there other ways to get similar deals now that Costco Next is gone?
Costco’s standard online catalog and monthly coupon books remain active, and some former Costco Next vendor brands may offer similar products through their own websites or other marketplaces, though without the same membership-exclusive discount structure.
Does this affect my regular Costco membership or warehouse shopping?
No. Costco Next was a separate online marketplace feature available to members, distinct from standard warehouse shopping, Costco.com’s regular online store, or other membership benefits like Costco Travel and Costco Auto Program, none of which have been affected by this shutdown.
Has Costco discontinued other member perks like this before?
Yes. Costco has a history of discontinuing popular products and, less frequently, member-facing programs, often without extensive public explanation. Past examples include several discontinued Kirkland Signature food products and bakery items that were removed from stores with limited advance notice.
Bottom Line
Costco has shut down Costco Next, its members-only third-party marketplace, without warning or public explanation, ending a nearly decade-old program that appeared to be growing rather than shrinking. If you have a pending return or warranty question tied to a Costco Next purchase, contact the vendor directly using the contact list on Costco’s support page rather than expecting Costco itself to process it. Beyond that, the shutdown leaves a genuine gap for members who relied on the marketplace’s curated, discounted selection, one that Costco’s remaining online catalog and coupon programs only partially fill. As with past Costco discontinuations, don’t expect an official explanation soon, and don’t assume any single perk or program is permanent just because members value it.