Costco's pitch has always been physical: drive to a warehouse, buy in bulk, save. Its fiscal 2026 results say the next phase is being assembled somewhere else.
Digitally-enabled sales — a category that includes orders fulfilled through third-party delivery platforms — exceeded $33 billion for the fiscal year and grew more than 20%, CEO Ron Vachris said on the Sept. 24 earnings call. The company reported full-year net sales of $297.2 billion, up 10.1% from $269.9 billion, with fourth-quarter net sales up 11.2% to $93.9 billion. Total comparable sales rose 8.4% for the year and 9.4% in the quarter, and the digitally-enabled line grew 20.9% across the 52 weeks.
The mechanism is not a new app. It is the decision to let other companies bring the warehouse to the customer. Costco spent the past year expanding delivery partnerships with Uber and DoorDash to nationwide coverage while keeping its warehouses as the fulfillment engine. That structure protects what the club model is actually built on — membership renewal and traffic — while capturing demand from shoppers who will not make the trip.
The quarter also showed the club operating as an inflation hedge. Gasoline was a key sales driver, with Vachris calling it a record year; discounted fuel and bulk pricing pulled in price-sensitive shoppers as fuel costs stayed elevated. Costco received $184 million in IEEPA tariff refunds during the quarter, which CFO Gary Millerchip disclosed on the call, and reinvested them through price cuts on essentials, meat, beverages, and some non-food items. Adjusted EPS of $6.60 excluding a 15-cent refund benefit beat the $6.53 estimate.
The operator takeaway cuts both ways. Costco's member base is absorbing the digital channel without diluting the trip — but third-party delivery economics are not club economics. If digitally-enabled sales keep compounding at roughly 20% while the company leans on platforms it does not control, the question becomes who owns the customer relationship and the data on those orders. Costco's answer so far has been to treat the platforms as a reach layer, not a channel of record.
Watch the renewal rate and membership-fee line next quarter. The fee increase and a growing digital cohort are supposed to reinforce each other: shoppers who buy both ways should renew at higher rates. If they do, Costco's omnichannel buildout becomes the rare case of a legacy warehouse operator expanding its moat in a channel it once ignored.