By Ankur Khurana, founder of ShelfVerse 路 Last updated November 4, 2026
Every Costco regular knows the feeling: you spot a price ending in .97 or a tiny asterisk and wonder if you just found a deal or a trap. Here is what is actually known, what is only shopper lore, and how price tags tie into Costco's 30-day price adjustment.
Costco has no public page that decodes price endings. Everything below comes from shopper experience, employee comments repeated by consumer sites, and pattern-spotting, not from a Costco document. That is why each code below is labelled Widely reported or Unclear. The pattern can differ by region and by warehouse, and Costco can change its practices without notice.
What is official is the price-adjustment policy: Costco.com says items that drop in price within 30 days of purchase can be adjusted, and that Costco can deny a request at its discretion. See our complete price adjustment guide for the rules.
| Tag detail | Reported meaning | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| .99 | Regular shelf price. Often the "normal" ending for non-markdown items. | Common pattern |
| .97 | Markdown or clearance price, the most consistent signal in shopper reports. | Widely reported |
| .00 | Manager markdown or a deeper one-off discount. Sources disagree. | Unclear |
| .88, .49, .79, .89 | Occasionally mentioned as vendor-set, special-buy or warehouse-specific prices. No consistent explanation across sources. | Unclear |
| Asterisk (*) | Item is not expected to be restocked ("when it's gone, it's gone"). | Widely reported |
| .97 and asterisk | Often described as the strongest "buy now" signal: marked down and not coming back. | Widely reported |
This is the one most sources agree on. A price ending in .97 is widely reported to mean the item has been marked down below its usual price, often to clear stock. Some sources describe these as corporate-level markdowns across many warehouses; others say they can be warehouse-specific. In practice the price on the tag in front of you is what counts, and it may differ from the warehouse across town.
An asterisk in the corner of a tag or the item-number line is widely reported to mean the item is being discontinued or won't be reordered. Some shoppers jokingly call it the "death star". Two cautions. First, an asterisk is not a guaranteed discount; it can sit on a tag at full price. Second, "won't be restocked" is shopper lore, so if you need a specific item, don't assume a later shipment will not arrive and don't assume it will.
Accounts here conflict: some say a manager lowered the price locally, others call it a rarer, deeper discount, and a few say it's mostly seen on certain categories like clothing. Since there is no official definition, the honest takeaway is that .00 is worth noticing but not worth building a strategy on.
You will see these endings in lists of "secret codes". We could not find a consistent explanation backed by Costco or by multiple independent sources, so we are not going to guess. Compare the price to your recent receipts and the item's usual price instead.
The useful question is not "what does this code mean?" but "did I buy this in the last 30 days at a higher price?" If yes, a markdown or new instant-savings price is exactly the moment a price adjustment applies:
Whether a clearance markdown qualifies is something the desk decides. Costco's published rules say it can deny any request, and it does not list markdown types as excluded or included. Asking politely costs nothing. If you are declined, see what Costco commonly won't adjust.
Price codes are a treasure hunt that depends on being in the right warehouse at the right time. The 30-day adjustment is a safety net that works after the fact, and it only helps if you notice the drop. That is the gap an app can fill: ShelfVerse compares your Costco purchases with later prices and tells you when an item you bought is now cheaper, and how many days you have left. It is one tool, not the only way. You can do the same with a spreadsheet and a habit of checking.
Let your phone watch the prices for you.
ShelfVerse syncs your Costco purchases and tells you when something you bought drops in price, including markdowns, with the days you have left to ask for the difference. Free on iOS and Android.
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