Costco's precious metal offerings are a cheat code for e-commerce sales as gold passes $4,400 an ounce

• Gold prices hit a record high on Monday, rising to more than $4,400 an ounce.
• One popular place to buy precious metals is Costco, which reportedly sells over $200 million a month.
• Gold coins and bars have boosted Costco's online sales thanks to their high purchase price.

People are still buying gold — including at Costco.

The precious metal's price hit a record high on Monday, crossing $4,400 an ounce. That's up from roughly $2,600 an ounce at the start of 2025.

Costco, which sells gold bars and coins, has seen its bullion sales rise during the rally.

Along with jewelry and health and beauty items, gold was one product category where sales increased at a double-digit rate for Costco during the retailer's first quarter ended November 23, CFO Gary Millerchip said on an earnings call earlier this month.

While Costco didn't say how much gold it sold in the quarter, analysts have previously estimated that the warehouse chain sells about $200 million in gold and silver each month.

Former CEO Richard Galanti has said that gold added to the retailer's website typically sells out "within hours" of its release — demand so strong that Costco has limited how much gold customers can buy at once.

When the metal's spot price rises faster than the retail price, Costco's gold inventory can move quickly, according to posts on the CostcoPM subreddit.

Though analysts have said that the high prices are now dissuading some shoppers from buying bars and coins, Costco still appears to sell through its supplies quickly, based on the subreddit's item listing tracker.

Costco's ultralow markup is a big part of the wholesale club's appeal for professional and amateur collectors alike. One likened the club store to a "gateway drug" to gold investing in an interview with Business Insider earlier this year.

Although Costco's profit margin on gold and silver sales is comparatively low, these high-value items serve as a kind of cheat code for the wholesale club that is still developing its e-commerce business.

Routing hundreds of millions of dollars in sales through Costco.com is a quick way for the company to show strong e-commerce growth with relatively low risk or complicated capital investment: it simply buys a batch of gold and sells every ounce of it to members.

The strategy is paying off, too — digital sales for the company's most recent fiscal year were up 15.6% over the previous year. That growth comes on top of last year's 16.1% growth over 2023, the first year Costco mentioned that it sold gold.

Since the gold and silver are member exclusives, the buzz around the metals is another way to attract new sign-ups. After all, what is a $65 membership fee on a $4,400 shopping cart of gold bullion?