Excluding impacts from fluctuating gas prices and foreign exchange rates, comparable store sales growth at Canadian Costco stores topped all markets.
Fourth quarter comparable store sales in Canada, where Costco operates 107 stores, were up 1.8%, compared with 0.2% stateside. Costco’s Q4 net income for the fiscal fourth-quarter rose to $2.2 billion USD, compared with $1.87 billion USD a year earlier.
Net sales for Q4 period were $77.43 billion USD, an increase of 9.4% from $70.76 billion USD in the period a year prior, while net sales for the 53-week calendar year were $237.71 billion USD, an increase of 6.7% from $222.73 billion USD in 2022.
The company reported that for the fiscal fourth quarter, “food and sundries were relatively strong once again, with fresh foods right behind and with some offsets on some of the nonfood categories.”
Costco says membership renewal rates in Canada are at 92.7%, up slightly from the 92.6% figure reported at the end of Q3.
In the company’s earnings call, Richard Galanti, director, EVP and CFO, said the company is “in the early innings of our digital mobile transformation efforts” and that progress is being made.
“In terms of recent additions and upgrades, we’ve recently redesigned the account page and the digital membership card,” Galanti said. “We also redesigned the header with larger search bar and expanded selling space. We’ve added an app box for messages and advertisements right in the app.”
In terms of retail media, he says it is “actively working on it.”
The company’s Instacart sales are growing in the U.S. and Canada, and it is adding non-food items.
“We are testing in stores some big-ticket items, like TVs, but on a limited basis to see what happens for buy online and pickup in store,” Galanti said.
When it comes to CPG promotions, Galanti says “there’s probably a little bit more of an increase” on those kinds of activities.
While gaming and some Apple product sales are up, the company admitted weakness in other big ticket discretionary items, like computers and notebooks. Ecommerce sales were also down 0.8%.
