The 2024 Costco
eCommerce Playbook

Best Practices and Insights for Omnichannel Success

Now is primetime for brands to cash in on Costco’s eCommerce growth

As one of the world’s largest wholesale distributors, Costco is seeing consistent growth. In July of this year, despite economic uncertainties, the company reported a 7.1 percent increase YoY. The secret to the retailer’s success? Online sales

 

Costco has recently strengthened and expanded its eCommerce presence, investing in its digital infrastructure and marketing, improving delivery times, and adding in-store pickup items. These robust changes have been well received by consumers, resulting in a 20.7 percent increase of eCommerce sales in Q3 of 2024 for Costco.  It has also positioned itself as the world’s third-largest retailer, according to the NRF. 

 

So how can your brand leverage Costco’s online success to generate sales for your omnichannel eCommerce-enabled brand? In this guide, learn the latest benchmarks, insights, and best practices for leveraging Costco as a key online retailer.

 

MikMak Costco Playbook YoY Chart

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Sanofi’s Bas van Kesteren prescribes a healthy dose of eCommerce

 

"The cool thing about eCommerce is that we can be more than just a sales channel. We can be more than just another option for people to buy their products. We can make this way more convenient, and we can explain it better to people. And I think one of the cool things that is also happening is that we can better react to people."


What does the Costco Membership mean for online shoppers?

 

A major difference between Costco and other retailers is their membership model. By generating revenue and loyalty with memberships, Costco can sell products at deeper discounts than traditional retailers. Additionally, with Costco’s membership model, they can see further insight into shopping habits and past purchases. According to DesignRush, they are further utilizing this model by utilizing this data to venture into the ad network market. 

 

While the membership model has been a cornerstone of Costco’s business since its inception, the retailer recently started offering new membership incentives. Their partnership with Uber has allowed them to offer discounts on Uber One memberships and offer Uber gift cards. They also incentivize online shopping with other benefits, strengthening member loyalty and eCommerce engagement. 

 

Brands are investing in social commerce to send shoppers to Costco.com

 

Regarding ad spend, brands sending traffic to Costco spend most of their dollars on social, which drives a substantial 96.4 percent of Purchase Intent Clicks*. 

 

MikMak Costco Playbook Channel Type

*Purchase Intent Clicks:
The number of times a shopper has clicked through to at least one retailer during a single session.

Meta drives the most traffic to Costco, compared to other social platforms

With so much traffic coming from social, what channels are driving the most traffic to Costco? The MikMak Shopping Index revealed that three social channels specifically lead shoppers to checkout.


Meta is leading the way significantly, with 93.4 percent of traffic. However, TikTok and YouTube are also sending some consumers to Costco.

 

MikMak Costco Playbook Share of Purchase Intent Clicks, bySocial Platform

California is seeing the most in-market Costco traffic

 

MikMak Costco Playbook Top 10 U.S States by Share of Purchase Intent Clicks to Costco


Costco sees the highest volume of eCommerce traffic on Thursdays, 7 - 11 PM ET

MikMak Costco Playbook Top Days by Share of Purchase Intent Clicks to Costco

Costco eCommerce traffic spikes in the evenings

MikMak Costco Playbook Top Hours by Share of Purchase Intent Clicks to Costco

Costco has a strong partnership with Instacart

In addition to its own app and online marketplace, Costco has strengthened its eCommerce offerings through its partnership with Instacart, providing members with convenient same-day delivery options. This integration complements Costco’s existing logistics capabilities, helping the retailer meet the growing demand for online grocery shopping.

 

Additionally, Costco members can benefit from discounted Instacart+ memberships, that include reduced rates and trial periods for new users. By linking their Costco membership to Instacart, members can save on delivery fees and enjoy seamless online shopping experiences. This collaboration highlights Costco’s commitment to enhancing the convenience of online shopping for its customers while expanding its digital reach.

 

Read our Instacart guide to learn more →

 

MikMak Instacart Report

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Chris Rogers of Instacart on Developing Strong Retailer Relationships, and Utilizing AI for Commerce

 

"All of our sales on our platform that we are driving, everything flows through our retail partners. They directly benefit; our incentives are completely aligned. If we run a thriving ads business that gets more items in the basket, our retailers win, our brands win, and we win."

Best Practices

Consider Costco’s popular private label, Kirkland Signature

 

Kirkland Signature, Costco’s private label brand, generates as much, if not more, revenue than some of the world’s largest brands. This popular brand designs products to be of equal or better quality than national brands, and consumers see that. The brand’s sale penetration garners more than a quarter of the retailer’s total merchandise sales. As a rule, Costco mandates that private label products comprise 25-30 percent of their category merchandising, and has built up brand equity with the Kirkland brand for years. 

 

However, with a robust marketing plan and understanding of private labels in your competitive landscape, your brand can adequately compete with Kirkland Signature, or any other products in your aisle. Stay close to first-party data to ensure your products are positioned to consumers who are most likely to buy, protecting your market share. Additionally, offer Costco as a checkout option directly from your brand’s shopping experiences, whether it be on your media or your brand website, to seamlessly add your products shopper’s Costco carts, and shorten the overall path to purchase. 

 

MikMak Costco Playbook Kirkland Signature


Here are some best practices when it comes to competing with private label from our partners at Profitero:

 

  1. Brands must embrace their role as category advisors and help retail partners develop a private label strategy that balances profit, growth, and consumer choice. Sales leaders shouldn’t shy away from discussing private label search in JBPs and retail media negotiations, ensuring their brands get a ‘fair share’ of organic placement as a reasonable ask in return for media and trade commitments.

  2. Private label may win on price, but national brands have the advantage when it comes to developing differentiated content and innovations because they deeply understand the consumer.

  3. Competing with private labels on price rarely leads to sustainable growth, as dynamic pricing algorithms track every price change, driving a race to the bottom and lowering average selling price (ASP). However, monitoring pricing and promotion dynamics helps brands benchmark against competitors, including private labels, and better understand shopper decisions from a full category perspective.

Profitero Vizit Private Label vs National Brand

Read more from our partners at Profitero in their report, Fighting Back Against Private Label Online

Leverage eCommerce enablement and analytics

 

Enable shoppable media with a partner like MikMak. Make the path to purchase for Costco short and seamless for your consumers. Remember, every step outside of the intended path to purchase opens up opportunities for your competitors to intervene. Using MikMak Insights helps you manage multichannel marketing strategies and gain actionable data.

 

Utilize a marketing software and tools, including MikMak’s Custom Report Builder. By doing this, brands can ensure a consistent presence across channel, access real-time marketing data, and use data analytics marketing to improve omnichannel strategy and sales performance.

 

Get close to the data by utilizing platforms like MikMak for comprehensive eCommerce enablement and analytics to seamlessly manage multichannel retail strategies and gain actionable insights. By gathering and leveraging first-party data, brands can enhance marketing effectiveness, personalize the shopping experience, and ultimately drive profitability.


Product Feature


MikMak Insights Custom Report Builder

Improve marketing effectiveness by building custom reports with all of the desired metrics, dimensions, and filters you want, directly in the MikMak Insights platform.

 

MikMak Custom Report Builder


Strengthen your relationship with Costco

Keep a close eye on which products perform best at Costco, and direct traffic accordingly to encourage higher conversion rates. Consider using tools like MikMak Custom Retailer Allocation to achieve this. Additionally, you can enable MikMak’s where to buy product locator feature, MikMak Store Locator, so shoppers can see when your products are in-stock at their local Costco.  You can also use proprietary, retailer-specific consumer insights from MikMak in joint planning discussions with Costco to unlock shelf space and media value. 

Product Feature

 

MikMak Custom Retailer Allocation

Apply percent allocations for how frequently retailers will appear in Retail Media experiences to drive higher conversion with intelligent, performance-based retailer redirection capabilities

MikMak Custom retail AllocationLearn More →

 

MikMak Store Locator

Global store locator that helps shoppers find local retail options where your products are available, directly from your website or media.

MikMak store locator

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Costco has a new, data-robust retail media network

Costco’s new retail media platform offers eCommerce brands access to first-party data, allowing for personalized ads targeting its 74.5 million household members based on shopping behavior. While still in development, Costco's ad network has the potential to rival major players like Walmart and Target. By integrating MikMak’s retail media solutions, data, and insights alongside Costco’s robust membership data, brands can enhance their strategies to drive both eCommerce and in-store sales.

Product Feature

 

MikMak for Retail Media

Optimize for retail media. Bypass the landing page and lead shoppers straight from your ad to the retailer PDP of your choosing, reducing the number of clicks a shopper makes, while still collecting all the same data and insights expected from MikMak.

 

MikMak Commerce for Retail Media provides consistent and real-time reporting of retailer-specific performance data alongside national media investments including paid search, influencer media, display, video and more; empowering brands with the information needed to properly adjust and scale their retail media strategy.

 

How Commerce for Retail Media WorksLearn More →


Implement scalable tools and platforms for global efficiency

 

Save time and money companywide. One easy-to-use global platform like MikMak, complete with full-service and self-service tools, automatically enables consistent reporting and fast decision-making across the entire organization. Our platform empowers you to build, design, and customize eCommerce websites and media experiences, all backed by our best-in-class global retail network, inventory data, and sales attribution.

 

Headless Commerce API

MikMak’s Headless Commerce API is now completely configurable through our Platform’s Self-Service Tools helping you save time when deploying customized commerce experiences powered on the backend by MikMak

The Glenlivet Pernod Ricard Headless Commerce Brand Website MikMak

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"As we engaged with MikMak, the benefit wasn’t just the solution, but the ability to connect the data and say, ‘If I’m improving the consumer experience and our ability to convert and send qualified traffic to retailers, I’m creating a new value opportunity for our business that the sales team, retail partners, and brand teams will want to hear.’"

Justin Thomas

KraftHeinz

All data and insights from this guide are sourced from the MikMak Shopping Index

The MikMak Shopping Index was developed to provide a standardized set of metrics, methodology, and benchmarks to help drive brands’ business results and strategy. It is a collection of key eCommerce KPIs collected across hundreds of brands and over 250 channels and more than 7,000+ retailer integrations to understand consumer online shopping behavior.


Data used in this report ranges from 09/16/23 - 09/16/24

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Download the PDF

The 2024 Costco eCommerce Playbook

 

Be sure to bookmark this PDF so you can access the link whenever you need it:

 

MikMak Costco Playbook Vertical Cover