Costco Wholesale Corporation's COST August sales reflected resilient consumer demand, with comparable sales advancing across regions and digitally enabled sales maintaining strong momentum. The company continues to benefit from its value-driven pricing, quality merchandise, and broad warehouse footprint, which are helping attract shoppers in a cautious consumer environment.

Breaking Down Costco's August Sales Numbers

For the four weeks ended Aug. 30, 2026, Costco reported an 8.4% year-over-year increase in total comparable sales. Regionally, comparable sales rose 9% in the United States, 4% in Canada and 9.5% in Other International markets. This compares with total comparable sales growth of 8.9% and 8.8% in July and June, respectively.

Excluding the impacts of gasoline prices and foreign exchange, comparable sales increased 5.6% in the United States, 2.8% in Canada and 6.8% in Other International markets. Overall, total comparable sales, excluding these factors, rose 5.4% in July compared with increases of 6.6% in July and 7% in June.

Digitally enabled comparable sales remained a key growth driver, rising 17.9% in August. This followed growth of 17.7% in July and 20.9% in June.

Costco's August net sales increased 9.9% year over year to $23.70 billion from $21.56 billion. This compares with net sales growth of 10.7% in July and 10.6% in June.

With Labor Day falling a week later in the United States and Canada this year, the calendar shift reduced August total and comparable sales by just under 75 basis points.

Costco appears to have several factors supporting continued sales growth, including its value proposition, steady warehouse traffic and rapidly expanding digital business. August's broad-based comparable sales gains also suggest that growth is not dependent on a single market.

How Does Costco Stack Up Against Its Industry?

Costco, which competes with Dollar General CorporationDG and Target CorporationTGT, has seen its shares jump 7.3% year to date compared with the industry's 7.4% rise. While Dollar General shares have fallen 1.2%, Target has surged 67.7% over the same period.

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What Does Costco's Current Valuation Suggest?

From a valuation standpoint, Costco's forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio stands at 45.26, higher than the industry's ratio of 27.97. However, the stock is trading marginally below its 12-month median level of 45.49, indicating some moderation in valuation.

Costco is trading at a premium to Target (with a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 16.84) and Dollar General (16.79).