A brand new program is being introduced by Costco where they will now email you your coupon books, yearly renewal forms, and executive membership refund, among other things. It is part of their go green initiative, saving a lot of paper in the process. They will not entirely discontinue coupon books; the electronic version will be on a voluntary basis. You can also unsubscribe from the email list at any time, and you will then resume receiving paper coupon books. This should be a nationwide campaign, but I have seen it pushed at some Costcos while others are not promoting it. Usually while you’re standing in line, or when you first walk in an employee may ask you if you’d like to sign up for the new program.

To get an idea of how much money Costco would save, they are also considering going paperless with their payroll. From what I understand, if they did not give paper checks to all the employees currently on direct deposit (which they are considering) the company would save $1 million a year. That makes sense taking into account that they have roughly 150,000 employees and 26 pay checks per year. So, considering there are at least 33 million households with a membership, not mailing coupon books to all of them could be quite a cost saver, and environment saver. What do you think, would you prefer coupon books by mail?