Costco Wholesale Corp "The Place WareHouseholds Goto Shop" (Buy) Lasser

Research evidence excerpt

Costco Wholesale Corp "The Place WareHouseholds Goto Shop" (Buy) Lasser

ted the same day

delivery through Instacart, UberEats, and DoorDash grew more quickly than

overall digital sales. They also point to personalized product recommendation

carousels driving over ~$500mm in eComm sales.

Unit openings: COST continues to see significant white space opportunity in the

US (both fill-in and new markets) as well as overseas. For this fiscal year, it now

plans to open 26 net new stores. It plans to continue to open 30+ net new stores

going forward, with half or slightly more of these openings taking place in the US.

Technology: COST continues to see solid results from its recent tech initiatives.

These include pre-scan technology, pharmacy pay-ahead, mobile wallet

enhancements, and more. The company saw significantly improved speed of

checkout and employee productivity. On a separate note, the company is

expanding its technical suite. Personalized product recommendation carousels

drove nearly half a billion in eComm sales this quarter. It is also levereaging AI to

enhance product pages online. COST saw triple-digit growth in AI-generated

volume in 3Q. Traffic from AI search had the highest conversion rate of all traffic

coming to its site.

Capex: COST spent $1.41bn in 3Q'26 on Capex, and maintained their $6.5bn

guide for this year (~$5.5bn from last year). This reflects a higher number of club

openings, warehouse remodels, depot network expansion, and digital

investments.

How are the bulls reacting to the print?

The bulls point to another quarter of sharp execution from this retailer. This group is

unconcerned by the slight decline in core-on-core margins given the consistent increases

of late. In fact, bulls welcome the move to lower prices as it likely aided the retailer in