Costco sales up 20.4% in June

Costco Wholesale Corp. maintained its momentum in June with big increases in total sales and comparable sales — helped by higher gas prices.

The membership warehouse club retailer reported that its net sales rose 20.4% to $22.78 billion for the retail month of June, which had one additional shopping day in the U.S. versus last year, due to the timing of Independence Day. Costco said this amounted to and an approximately 3% benefit to U.S. sales.

Costco’s total comparable sales rose 18.1%, with a 21.5% increase in the U.S., a 14.2% increase in Canada and a 4.7% bump in other international markets. E-commerce comp sales rose 7.0%. 

When excluding impacts from changes in gas prices and foreign exchange, Costco posted an overall comparable sales increase of 13% and an 8.3% rise in comp e-commerce sales. 

David Sherwood, assistant VP of finance and investor relations at Costco, said that higher gas prices increased total comp sales by approximately 7.4%. 

The U.S. regions and markets turning in the strongest comp-sales performances for June were the Midwest, San Diego and Texas. The top international comp-sales results were Spain, Australia and the United Kingdom.

For the 44 weeks ended July 3, 2022, the company reported net sales of $188.34 billion, an increase of 16.9% from $161.09 billion during the similar period last year. For the year to date, total comparable sales are up 15.3% and e-commerce comps are up 10.6%.

Costco currently operates 833 warehouses, including 574 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 107 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 31 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 16 in Korea, 14 in Taiwan, 13 in Australia, four in Spain, two each in France and China, and one in Iceland. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.