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Costco is known for selling basically everything you need in addition to plenty of products you never knew you needed until you stumbled across them—which appears to include bars of gold based on how much revenue they’ve generated for the company.
At first glance, you might not think the world needs a place where you can buy 1,000 pills of ibuprofen, 3,000 feet of plastic wrap, a new television, and a rotisserie chicken during a shopping trip you can cap off by ordering a hot dog at the food court.
However, Costco nonetheless gives its customers the chance to do exactly that each time they enter one of its warehouses and has done very well for itself as a result.
Truly devoted fans of the Kirkland brand know the company website also features plenty of deals you might not be able to take advantage of at a physical location. That includes the one-ounce bars of 24K gold the company started selling online in 2023, which it’s had trouble keeping in stock for more than a few hours after new listings go live.
Now, I can’t tell you why Costco decided to get in on the precious metals game, although I have a feeling it’s targeting the kind of customers who have also done a fair amount of purchasing from the “Emergency Food Supplies & Kits” section of its website (the ones who watch Parks of Recreation and think to themselves, “You know, that Ron Swanson guy makes some great points”).
With that said, it does seem like the decision to sell gold bars worked out pretty well, as CNBC reports Costco CFO Richard Galanti told investors on a recent earnings call that the company sold more than $100 million worth of them in its most recent fiscal quarter alone.
It’s pretty unlikely Costco is raking in a massive profit on the gold when you consider the listed price of the bars tends to be pretty close to their value on the commodities market when the sales go live. With that said, when you’re moving $100 million worth of anything over the course of a few months, those margins are going to add up.