costco.com
Costco.com is Costco Wholesale’s main U.S. shopping website, and it extends the warehouse club model into online retail, grocery delivery, membership services, and large-item delivery.
What makes Costco.com different from a normal online store?
Costco.com is tied to a huge retail system that produced $297.3 billion in net sales during fiscal 2026, up 10.2% from $269.9 billion one year earlier.
That system had 939 warehouses at the end of August 2026, including 647 locations in the United States and Puerto Rico.
The website therefore works beside physical stores instead of trying to replace them.
This matters because Costco can use warehouses, distribution centers, delivery partners, and its membership base to serve online buyers.
How important is online shopping to Costco?
Costco reported that digitally enabled comparable sales grew 20.9% during fiscal 2026, while total company comparable sales grew 8.4%.
This means Costco’s digital sales growth rate was about 2.5 times its total comparable-sales growth rate during that period.
The trend was already clear in fiscal 2025, when e-commerce represented about 7% of Costco net sales and all digitally enabled sales represented about 10%.
Costco also said e-commerce comparable sales increased 16% during fiscal 2025.
Digital demand kept moving fast in fiscal 2026, as Costco.com website and app traffic increased 37% in the third quarter.
How large is the Costco membership base?
Costco reported 82.9 million paid members and 148.5 million total cardholders at the end of its fiscal 2026 third quarter.
The U.S. and Canada membership renewal rate was 92.2%, while the worldwide rate was 89.7%.
Those high renewal numbers give Costco.com something many shopping websites do not have: millions of buyers who have already paid for access to the Costco system.
Costco has also said online memberships tend to renew at a slightly lower rate than memberships overall, so digital growth still comes with a loyalty challenge.
What does a Costco membership cost?
A standard Gold Star membership costs $65 per year, while an Executive membership costs $130 per year.
Both membership levels include one household card and access to Costco warehouses and Costco.com.
Executive members can earn a 2% annual reward on qualified Costco, Costco.com, and Costco Travel purchases, with the reward capped at $1,250 per year.
About 41.2 million people held Executive memberships by Costco’s fiscal 2026 third quarter, and Executive members generated about 75% of company sales.
When does an Executive membership make financial sense?
The Executive upgrade costs $65 more than a basic membership, so a shopper needs about $3,250 in eligible annual spending for a 2% reward to equal that extra $65 cost.
That works out to about $271 in eligible purchases each month before considering exclusions or other Executive benefits.
Costco also gives Executive members extra benefits, including selected service savings and additional travel benefits.
The simple break-even calculation makes the upgrade easier to judge because heavy Costco.com and warehouse shoppers can compare their real yearly spending with the $3,250 mark.
How does grocery delivery from Costco.com work?
Costco offers Same-Day Delivery through Instacart in qualifying areas, with a minimum order of $35.
Same-day prices are higher than local warehouse prices because service and delivery costs are built into item prices.
Costco also offers 2-Day Delivery for many non-perishable groceries, including coffee, snacks, cleaning products, and household supplies.
Orders of at least $75 avoid the separate delivery surcharge on eligible 2-Day items, while smaller orders can carry a $3 surcharge per item.
This creates a simple trade-off because online ordering can save time, but the cheapest price may still be inside a warehouse.
Why is Costco.com becoming more important?
Costco’s fiscal 2026 third-quarter digitally enabled comparable sales grew 21.5%, compared with 9.8% comparable-sales growth for the total company during the same quarter.
The company also reported $69.15 billion in quarterly net sales, an 11.6% increase from the prior year.
That gap shows that digital shopping is growing much faster than Costco as a whole, even though warehouses remain the heart of the business.
Costco has supported that growth with app improvements, mobile cake ordering, push notifications, better search tools, and other digital changes.
Is Costco.com worth using?
Costco.com is most useful for people who already value Costco membership and want more choice, home delivery, or an easier way to buy large and bulky products.
The main thing to remember is that Costco.com prices can differ from warehouse prices, especially when delivery costs are included.
For frequent members, the site adds convenience to a retail system that already serves nearly 150 million cardholders and is seeing digital sales grow at roughly twice the pace of the wider business.
For price-first shoppers, checking Costco.com against the local warehouse price is still the best way to know whether convenience is worth the extra cost.