- Costco Wholesale (NasdaqGS:COST) has launched nationwide online ordering and delivery for custom cakes and party platters through Instacart and sameday.costco.com.
- This is the first time Costco members can order fully customized event items via the companys e commerce platforms.
- The rollout extends Costco Bakery and Deli event offerings to digital channels that aim to support at home and small business entertaining.
As more retailers use delivery and online customization to deepen customer loyalty, it can be useful to compare Costco with other under the radar quality stocks that are tied to similar long term shifts in how people shop through screener containing 19 high quality undiscovered gems.
Costco Wholesale operates membership warehouse clubs across multiple regions including the US, Europe and Asia. This gives it a broad store base to feed into new digital services like online ordering for events. For you as an investor, this connects its traditional bulk retail model with at-home and small-business entertaining trends that increasingly run through e-commerce channels.
What Costco’s online cake and platter rollout means for the membership and e commerce story
For Costco Wholesale, nationwide online ordering of custom cakes and party platters plugs directly into the Narrative catalyst around e commerce growth and digital channels, which already showed strong traction with 22.2% FX adjusted e commerce comp sales growth. It reinforces the idea that Costco can connect its membership warehouse model to more occasions at home and in small businesses, using Instacart and FoodStorm to extend the bakery and deli perimeter online. At the same time, this development raises the bar on execution risk in areas the Narrative already flags, such as supply chain costs and labor, because more complex custom orders can be harder to run efficiently at scale.
If we take a look at the community Narrative for Costco Wholesale, we can see how this news fits into the bigger investment story.
The next proof point to watch is how Costco reports digital and same day comp sales in the upcoming quarterly results, especially any color on order volumes and mix from bakery and deli categories on Instacart and sameday.costco.com, which will show whether this service is gaining meaningful traction with members.
For the full picture including more risks and rewards, check out the complete Costco Wholesale analysis.
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