Costco Wholesale Corporation, a U.S. based multinational firm that operates a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs, is finding new ways to distribute fresh foodstuff to its customers in Canada. For the record, in the last quarter of 2017, the largest player cross the Canadian warehouse retail sector had successfully launched online food items dispatching services of non-perishable products in the U.S. Experts claim that its recent move to explore the Canadian retail industry comes on the heels of this initial success in the U.S.
A while ago, the company had extended its collaboration with Instacart with regards to the home delivery of fresh food. Industry analysts believe this would’ve helped the firm promote its retail business in Canada as Instacart too had partnered with Loblaw in Canada for delivering online grocery orders in Toronto & Vancouver. Last week, the CEO of Costco, Richard Galanti had declared that the company had earned lucrative revenue from its online grocery sales and the overall business has been expanding rapidly.
According to reports, online retail store sales at Costco Canada in the second quarter, which closed in February 2018, registered an estimated growth of over 8.7%. Walmart Canada on the other hand, had recorded a sales growth of nearly 2.9% at the end of January 2018. Statistics Canada had estimated that that there was a 75% dip in the retail food sales of Canada’s traditional grocery retail stores as observed in the third quarter of the last year as compared to its 85% sales in 2007.
Some of Costco’s key officials have convinced their U.S. customers that the online shopping is just about providing convenience. The firm has further stated that its online delivery charges for groceries are 15% to 17% higher than the costs at the walk-in retail shops. As per statistics, the firm’s total eCommerce sales in the second quarter increased by 28.5% y-o-y to USD 1.5 billion, while its total sales for the same span was USD 32.28 billion.
