Costco Corp. reportedly plans to take a tougher line on the sharing of membership cards.
The bulk retailer intends to ask customers to show photo identification in addition to a Costco
COST,
membership card when going through the self-checkout process, the Dallas Morning News reported last week. CNBC confirmed the report Tuesday.
“We don’t feel it’s right that nonmembers receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” a Costco spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News.
MarketWatch has reached out to Costco for comment on its policy.
The company indicated on its last earnings call that it was likely to hold off on increasing its membership fees, even as an analyst suggested Costco would appear to have room for a hike.
See more: Grocery prices are still going up, but Costco membership fees aren’t — for now
“Our view right now is that we’ve got enough levers out there to drive business,” Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said on the earnings call, although his view is that Costco would be able to increase fees if it wanted without meaningfully crimping renewal or signup rates.
Costco offers Gold Star and Business memberships for $60 each annually, as well as an Executive membership that costs $120. That higher tier of membership gives consumers a 2% reward on qualifying purchases from the company, among other benefits.
Costco joins Netflix Inc.
NFLX,
in clamping down on what the companies see as an abuse of membership privileges. The streaming service has moved recently to rein in account sharing by viewers in different households, requiring either that freeloaders pay for their own accounts or that account holders pay extra to add additional viewers.
Netflix’s initiative seems to be having the desired financial effect, initial third-party data points indicate.
See also: Netflix stock rally builds as company wins cheers for password-sharing success
Read: Netflix could be looking at a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’
Bill Peters contributed.
This story originally appeared on Marketwatch
