Costco shoppers have zeroed in on a tiny asterisk hiding in the corner of the warehouse giant's price tags, a symbol they call the "Star of Death" because it signals the item may soon vanish from shelves for good.
The marking sits in the top right-hand corner of Costco's shelf labels. It carries no explanation, no footnote, no announcement over the loudspeaker. But regular Costco customers and at least one former employee say its meaning is well established inside the warehouse walls: the product tagged with that asterisk is "pending deletion" and, in most cases, will not be restocked once the current supply sells out.
A moderator of Reddit's Costco forum laid out the system in a post that has circulated widely among deal-hunting members:
"Asterisk (also sometimes called 'Death Star' or 'Star of Death') signifies that the item is pending deletion and that specific item number will usually not be restocked in the near future at that specific warehouse."
The moderator added a caveat that keeps hope alive for loyalists of discontinued favorites: "A product with an asterisk may still come back at a later date." And crucially, the moderator stressed that "an asterisk alone does NOT indicate a discount." The symbol flags a product's future, not necessarily its current price.
The asterisk system makes more sense once you understand how Costco operates. A typical grocery store carries more than 10,000 products. Costco stocks around 4,000 at any given time. That lean selection is by design. The company keeps its range small so it can buy in bulk, negotiate lower prices from suppliers, and rotate seasonal or limited-run products in and out of warehouses.
That rotation is exactly what the asterisk tracks. A former employee who said they worked at Costco for two years confirmed the internal language:
"Worked at Costco for two years. It is called 'pending delete' and is being discontinued. The price usually drops accordingly."
One Reddit user who said they do business with Costco offered additional context, noting that "a lot of items that have an asterisk come back again and again, they are usually rotation items that have secured more rotations." Another shopper put it more plainly: the asterisk "may be because it's a seasonal item or there's a new or slightly different version taking its place, it's not necessarily gone for good."
So the Star of Death is not always a death sentence. But if you spot it on something you love, the advice from veteran shoppers is consistent. One Reddit commenter summed it up: "If you see the star and love the item, stock up on it."
Two products that drew particular attention from shoppers were Costco's popular ground bison and Carbone's Spicy Vodka Sauce. Store supervisors confirmed the ground bison was being discontinued after the asterisk appeared. The pasta sauce, meanwhile, has reportedly disappeared and returned before as part of Costco's rotating inventory, a pattern that fits the "secured more rotations" explanation from the business-side Reddit user.
The Costco community's obsession with tracking which products earn the dreaded asterisk has only grown as more shoppers learn the system.
The asterisk made national headlines when Costco shoppers spotted it on Bud Light price tags during the 2023 boycott fallout. Breitbart reported that customers flagged the symbol on Bud Light shelf labels, with one Twitter user posting: "Is it just me...Or am I the only one who noticed that Costco has applied their infamous Star of Death on Bud Light being sold!" Bud Light sales had fallen 24 percent in May of that year following the backlash over the brand's partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The commercial ripple effects extended beyond beer sales, the Ardagh Group, a glass bottling supplier for Anheuser-Busch, announced roughly 645 layoffs across plants in North Carolina and Louisiana, with a plant manager memo citing "slow sales with Anheuser InBev."
That episode showed how the asterisk can function as a market signal, not just a shelf-management tool. When consumer behavior shifts hard enough, Costco's lean inventory model responds fast, and the Star of Death is how the change shows up on the warehouse floor.
The asterisk is only one piece of a broader pricing language Costco uses but does not publicly explain. A TikTok user named Ryan Quinlan went viral, drawing 1.3 million views, after breaking down the meaning behind various price tag endings. Prices ending in.99 are regular retail. A.97 ending signals a store manager's exclusive deal. Prices ending in.00 indicate low stock. And endings of.49 or.79 point to manufacturer special offers, typically below standard retail price. The New York Post reported that Costco declined to officially confirm the system.
The company has also been known to use.88 endings, a convention some shoppers have linked to Lunar New Year promotions, though whether that practice is an official corporate policy or an informal warehouse-level decision remains unclear.
Markdowns can vary significantly from one warehouse to the next. An item priced at $299.99 might drop to $249.97 at one location and $199.97 at another. For shoppers willing to pay attention, the differences add up. A TikTok commenter who said they work at Costco confirmed the codes and added a useful tip: "If you buy an item full price within 30 days and we still have the item in the inventory you can price-adjust."
Costco's warehouse model continues to draw intense shopper interest on everything from food pricing controversies to store-level changes that catch members off guard.
None of this is published in a Costco handbook. The company has never issued a formal guide to its price tag symbols. Everything shoppers know comes from employees, current and former, and from years of collective observation shared on forums and social media. Costco's silence on the matter has, if anything, made the codes more interesting to its members.
The retailer keeps expanding its warehouse footprint, which means more shoppers encountering these tags for the first time, and more reason for the company to either explain the system or watch customers keep doing it for them.
Even the smallest details of the Costco experience seem to generate outsized attention from a membership base that treats warehouse shopping like a competitive sport.
When a company won't explain its own shelf labels, customers will. And in Costco's case, they've done it well enough that the Star of Death now carries more brand recognition than most of the products it marks for removal.