Costco’s August Sales Bring Many Reasons to Remain Bullish
Last night Costco ($COST) delivered its August net sales report, which showed sales for the month rose 9.9% year over year, and its August-quarter sales climbed 11.3% to $93.9 billion. Before we move on and discuss the closely tracked adjusted comp sales figures, let’s point out two things relating to the net sales number for the August quarter.
First, management estimates the later Labor Day this year impacted total August sales and comp sales by a little less than 75 basis points.
Second, when we look at consensus revenue expectations for Costco’s August quarter, total revenue is at $94.62 billion. Here’s the thing: Costco’s total revenue is comprised of net sales and membership fee revenue. Backing out the reported $93.9 billion in net sales for the August quarter, implies membership fee revenue of $0.7 billion, but Costco has been averaging $1.35 billion or so over the last few quarters.
That math tells us Costco’s net sales figure is running ahead of what the market was forecasting.
That’s some needed perspective that allows us to fend off the bearish criticism of slowing adjusted comp sales at Costco in August. Total adjusted comp sales for the month of August rose 5.4% year over year in August, 5.6% in the U.S., 2.8% in Canada, and 6.8% Other International compared to the respective figures of 6.7%, 7.2%, 4.6% and 6.2% for the August quarter.
This is where we remind you about the increasing difficulty of year-over year comparisons, which is why there are two other ways to examine Costco’s monthly adjusted comp sales figures. The first is on top of those year-ago figures and for August 2025, Costco’s adjusted comp sales figures were 6.9% for the total company, 6.7% for the U.S., 9.4% in Canada, and 5.3% Other International. The view to walk away with is even in the face of difficulty comparisons, Costco is still taking a substantial amount of consumer wallet share.
And that brings us to the second examination, comparing Costco’s monthly comp sales figures against those for other companies. When we performed that analysis recently against Walmart ($WMT), Target ($TGT) and other retailers that reported, it was pretty evident that Costco is winning share.
2 Other Things From the August 2026 Sales Report
The company’s e-commerce business continues to grow in the double-digits, climbing 17.9% on top of the 18.3% in August 2025. While most tend to focus on warehouse sales, simple math tells us this is becoming a larger piece of Costco’s sales and points to success in the company’s leaning into digital shopping.
Now let’s turn and look at the number of warehouse locations exiting August 2026. That number stood at 939 locations, up from 914. You may say 25 locations, but that’s almost 2.7% higher year over year, and up compared to 924 in mid-February. We would argue that suggests we could see a slightly stronger figure for the high margin membership fee revenue figure for the August quarter.
Bottom Line
In reviewing the above, we see much support for our bullish stance on Costco, especially as consumers battle sticky inflation, which is looking like it is once again higher than wage growth.
That same line of thinking reinforces our position on TJX ($TJX) as do recent in-person visits to TJX locations that showed stores filled with fresh fall and Halloween merch, and long checkout lines that ran down the aisles.
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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long COST and TJX.
