'Affluent People Love a Deal': These Luxury Items Are Flying Off the Shelves at Costco, According to the Company's Longtime Chairman

In a characteristic published Thursday, Costco Chairman Hamilton "Tony" James told Chief Executive Magazine that moreover though he's been connected Costco's committee for 36 years, he still loves attending the meetings.

"I find it fascinating," James said successful the Q&A. "The institution is simply a awesome model connected what's going successful the world of consumers, what they're buying aliases not buying."

And what they're buying, successful summation to the beloved $1.50 basking canine combo, are 10-carat diamonds and gold bars. (Wells Fargo analysts found successful September that the institution sells up to $200 cardinal worthy of golden bars monthly.)

Related: Would You Live Above a Costco? Thrive Living Is Building an Apartment Complex connected Top of the Warehouse Chain

"A Porsche trader successful Seattle put their cars connected the level of a Costco, and they sold retired successful a week," James said.

Costco had about 137 million paying members successful 2024, and most, James said, are "average-income earners nationally" but the storage concatenation besides has "affluent members pinch 2 times the mean income."

Those members let the institution to do "remarkable things" for illustration trading much high-priced Dom Perignon Champagne than "anyone else" — and for decades. In 2001, for example, the then-director of vino astatine Costco told the Los Angeles Times that the storage concatenation was the "nation's biggest retailer of Dom Perignon."

Business Insider reports that, according to information from analytics patient Numerator, millennial and Gen X households pinch higher income preferred shopping astatine Costco complete the competition.

Related: Costco Bulks Up Most Store Workers' Paychecks to More Than $30 an Hour.

"We've ever known we could move thing successful measurement if the value was bully and the value was awesome — Rolex watches, Dom Perignon, 10-carat diamonds," James said.

"Affluent group emotion a bully deal," he added, though they aren't only buying luxury items.

The company's Kirkland brand is "the second-largest marque anywhere," James notes.

Costco reported net income of $19.51 cardinal for January 2025, an summation of 9.2 percent from the aforesaid play past year.