The problem with shopping at Costco? It's 'Mad Max' with shopping carts
The problem with shopping at Costco? It's 'Mad Max' with shopping carts
Jessica Guynn, USA TODAYTue, April 28, 2026 at 9:06 AM UTC
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Like everything at Costco, the shopping carts are extra-large. Shelby Blessie isn’t.
At 4 feet, 11 inches tall she cranes her head to peer over the top of her cart as she maneuvers through a sea of shoppers weaving wildly in and out of crowded aisles as they scout deals and graze on samples.
Too often she has to slam on the brakes when people stop short – was that BBQ Chicken Mac and Cheese with Bacon? – or swivel on a dime to scoop up that 25-pound bag of rice they forgot a few aisles back.
“I have had people who didn’t see me run right into me or trip over me,” the 34-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, teacher said.
Shelby Blessie
To be fair, Blessie has accidentally rammed a few shoppers herself. “I don’t mean to,” she said, “but most of the time, they bring it on themselves.”
“You have got somebody behind you who is going the same pace as you and then you stop to look at the gigantic water slide,” she said. “I want to see it, too, but I am going to pull over to look at it.”
Welcome to the Costco thunderdome. Watch your feet.
Shopping carts sit in the parking lot of a Costco store on December 02, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
The Costco shopping experience is immersive by design – from the big-screen bling at the warehouse door to aisle after aisle of tantalizing deals to bag. Even when you’re dashing in just to grab some toilet paper and milk, it’s far too easy to succumb to sensory overload. What was on my list? Where is my list? Wait, are those sheets on sale? Do we need sheets?
“Costco is a very hectic store. Part of this is because it is so popular. Part of it is because it’s a store where people shop quite intensely – exploring different categories, buying in bulk and stopping to sample things,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said.
The “frenetic energy” inside Costco warehouses also influences how people shop, Saunders said. Think "Mad Max" but with shopping carts.
The internet calls the condition that afflicts some Costco shoppers “cart tunnel vision,” meaning they lose all situational and spatial awareness. On Reddit, one person coined the term “meanderthals” because “you can't tell where they're going and neither can they.”
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Seemingly unaware of their surroundings, these shoppers cruise along four and five abreast, forcing everyone else to squeeze around them. Rather than going with the flow in aisles lined with high pallets that limit visibility, they barrel down the wrong side.
While some people pull over to ogle the tiramisu cheesecake, these shoppers double park or leave their carts in the middle of aisles where they block the flow of traffic. The logjams created by shoppers who crowd sample stations four and five people deep is next-level rage bait in online Costco forums.
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Then there are the minor collisions these distracted habits routinely cause. These run-ins dubbed "bumper carts" are so common that warehouse employees joke that Costco lubricates the shopping cart wheels with ankle skin.
"You can get hurt if you’re not paying attention,” Costco shopper Tom Filline said.
Slamming the brakes on a fully loaded Costco cart is like trying to stop a 500-pound tractor trailer, said Filline, 39. His wife put him in charge of Costco shopping because – as an elementary school physical education teacher from Aurora, Illinois – he’s used to dealing with “chaotic environments.”
“I have a very clean cart-pushing record. I have never gotten into an accident. I have never bumped anybody,” he said.
But he has had some close calls dodging wayward shoppers. He compares navigating Costco to driving in a foreign country with no traffic laws.
He almost ran into a woman who darted in front of him. Then she stopped to yell at him.
“Everyone is in lala land,” Filline said.
Ian Collins
And that's what drives Ajay Bulchandani crazy. He says Costco shoppers have no respect for the unwritten "rules of the road" and should be required to take a shopping cart driver’s license test to qualify for a membership.
“I am not sitting there on my phone. When I have to park my cart, I make sure I am not blocking a high-profile item that people need to get to or I park outside of the aisle so it’s not in anyone’s way,” said Bulchandani, a 53-year-old DJ from American Canyon, California, who goes by Ajax. “People in Costco have no spatial awareness. Ultimately that’s what it really comes down to. They just leave their cart wherever because it suits their needs. They don’t care about inconveniencing anyone else.”
Even at 6 feet, 3 inches tall and 245 pounds, Ian Collins, a 39-year-old real estate agent in San Diego, says it’s like Black Friday every time he ventures into his local Costco warehouse.
“It’s pretty much 10 out of 10, my cart will get hit at least once and 2 out of 10 I will get bumped,” Collins said. “You scan your membership card and, as soon as it beeps, people just go into feral mode.”
So he drafted a common-sense shopping-cart etiquette and shared it on social media.
Treat your cart like it’s your car. Don't park in the middle of the aisle. Don’t run into people. Stay to the right. Go the same speed as traffic. Don’t go against the flow if you miss something.
And the No. 1 rule? “Don’t be a jerk.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The problem with shopping at Costco? ‘Cart tunnel vision’
Source: “AOL Money”
