Shoppers Say This Is The Best Costco In The US For Great Finds And Friendly Vibes

It turns out that Georgia doesn't just have the best peaches, it also has the single best Costco store. FinanceBuzz polled over 6,000 customers to find out which Costco in the United States offers the absolute most to its customers — and the warehouse located in Cumming, Georgia, came out on top. It was the highest-rated store in the categories of employee friendliness, the selection and supply of products, and the amount of free samples offered in the store.

The first-hand accounts of customers, posted on popular review sites, back up those claims. The Cumming Costco is praised for the wide variety of its inventory, as well as the quality of perishable foods such as produce, meat, and dairy. The store is also well-kept, which is in fact true for Costco stores in general — cleanliness was another category examined in FinanceBuzz's survey, and it performed very well nationwide. The only issue customers seem to have at the Cumming warehouse is the amount of people who love to shop there. The location is pretty crowded with very long lines, and to some, it even appears understaffed for the amount of foot traffic it receives. So, if you're planning to visit this much-beloved Georgia store, try to do so at the best time to shop at Costco for uncrowded aisles.

Costco has its presence in almost every U.S. state (yep, some states still don't have a single Costco). Although the individual highest-rated warehouse is in Georgia, the state with the most well-regarded Costco stores as a whole is South Carolina, per FinanceBuzz. Interestingly, the quantity of free samples ranked higher in this state than in any other, proving that Costco's sample strategy is still a core part of the wholesaler's business. The only metric that didn't have an all-around win in South Carolina's stores is the ease of parking — Ohio and Wisconsin got the higher score on that one. Speaking of Ohio, the Buckeye State ranked second for the quality of its Costco stores on average, and the location in Centerville placed as the fourth highest-rated individual warehouse.

On the other end of the scale, some states performed poorly. California, the U.S. state with 3x the number of Costco locations than any other, didn't even make the top 10 on the overall quality scale, despite having 143 Costcos to South Carolina's six. At the very bottom of the list landed New York and Hawaii, which had the lowest-rated warehouses of them all.