Costco quietly killed its third-party online marketplace without warning members

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The warehouse retailer's Costco Next platform, which connected members with select vendors since 2017, went offline over the weekend with no announcement

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Costco $COST shut down its Costco Next online marketplace without notifying members, leaving customers who visited the site to discover the closure on their own, according to USA Today.

CostcoNext.com now sends visitors to a Costco customer support page carrying the message: "Access to Costco Next store fronts is no longer available." That page identifies vendors that still honor returns and directs customers with return or warranty questions to reach out to those companies directly.

The platform went dark over the weekend, according to Fast Company. Among the companies named on the support page were Anker, Priority Bicycles, By Sophie, Gorilla Shed, and many others. Costco did not respond to requests for comment from USA Today or Fast Company.

Costco Next had operated since 2017, allowing members to order products from select third-party companies at discounted prices. The concept was developed beginning in 2016, according to Nino Garcia, assistant general merchandise manager for Costco Next, who is quoted on the company's own website. "There was a real learning curve as we developed the program, and there were a lot of refinements, from site improvements and product selection, to ensuring that every supplier understood the concept," Garcia said.

The absence of any announcement drew widespread attention online, with members discussing the closure across Reddit $RDDT threads. "Me learning about it on the day it disappeared might be part of the reason it's gone," one commenter said in a Costco thread on Reddit.

The shutdown came despite what appeared to be growth in the program. On the May 29, 2025, third-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call, then-CFO Gary Millerchip disclosed that Costco Next had already generated as much revenue in the roughly three months through May 11, 2025, as it had across all of fiscal year 2022. "We are excited about the pipeline of new vendors in development for future rollout," Millerchip said at the time, according to a transcript from S&P Global $SPGI Market Intelligence.

Costco's broader e-commerce business has continued to grow. During the company's fiscal third-quarter 2026, online and app visits surged 37%, while digitally enabled sales increased 21.5%.

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