Costco made a lot of money from gold bars during the first quarter. Many online customers had opened their wallets to get ounces.
Richard Galanti said, “You probably have read that we are selling 1-ounce bars,” Thursday evening. “We sold more than $100 million in gold during the third quarter.”
Galanti’s comment on the gold bar sales was made as he briefly discussed some of the fun wow items that Costco had listed on its website during the last quarter and other items that were recently added.
According to reports from October, the company sold gold bars of 1 ounce that were non-refundable through its website. Costco has a limit of two bars.
Costco has seen a lot of interest in them. Galanti reported that by the end of September, “When we put them up on our site, they are usually gone within a couple of hours.”
As of Friday afternoon, the price of gold, as measured by COMEX front-month futures, was hovering around $2.036 per troy.
Galanti provided interesting information about the sales of pies around Thanksgiving. Costco members purchased over 4 million pies during the three days leading up to Thanksgiving, including 2.9 million pumpkin pies, and 1.3 million apple and pecan pies, according to Galanti.
Costco reported that its first-quarter revenue increased by over 6% from the previous year, reaching $57.8 billion. According to the company, its net income was $ 1.59 billion.
Costco will have a new chief executive officer, Ron Vachris, take over the reins in January. This is part of “a long-standing succession plan,” which Craig Jelinek (current CEO) “has discussed with his board”, the company announced in October.