Costco sold $33 billion digitally. Shoppers sent by AI chatbots were likeliest to buy.
Costco's digitally enabled sales passed $33 billion in its fiscal year, up more than 20%, the company said on its earnings call on 24 September.
Chief financial officer Gary Millerchip said traffic to Costco's website from AI search "grew triple digits for the second consecutive quarter." He named Gemini, Anthropic and OpenAI models as the sources.
Those visitors have "the highest conversion rate of all site traffic," Millerchip said. A shopper who arrives from a chatbot's answer is more likely to buy than one who comes any other way.
What they buy includes the club itself. "The Costco membership is also among the top items originated from AI searches," he said.
Costco reported quarterly revenue of $95.7 billion and 84.1 million paid members, up 3.8%.
Can you measure when ChatGPT or Gemini recommends your company, and whether those visitors buy?
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