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 per cent to $22.78bn for the retail month of June, which had one additional shopping day in the US versus last year, due to the timing of Independence Day. Costco said this amounted to an approximately three per cent benefit to US sales.
Costco’s total comparable sales rose 18.1 per cent, with a 21.5 per cent increase in the US, a 14.2 per cent increase in Canada and a 4.7 per cent bump in other international markets. E-commerce comp sales rose seven per cent.
When excluding impacts from changes in gas prices and foreign exchange, Costco posted an overall comparable sales increase of 13 per cent and an 8.3 per cent 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 per cent.
The US 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 UK.
