#Costco Is Selling #Gold #Bar At A #Rapid #Pace
Discount retailer Costco has been selling one ounce gold bars on their website for the last few months and they appear to be quite popular. The precious metal, which can only be purchased online, has been selling so fast that the business had to limit each customer to only two gold bars.
Costco is not going to have a material change in their financial performance because of this product. Two gold bars cost an estimated $3,800, but the bigger trend of customer behavior is worth digging into.
According to Jeff Cox at CNBC, Costco has been selling more “prepper” materials to their customer base recently.
He writes:
“[Jonathan] Rose (co-founder of Genesis Gold Group) noted that the company seems to have accelerated its offerings of dried foods and other survivalist goods at a time when worries about the future are running high.
For example, the company markets a 150-serving emergency food preparedness kit that could come in handy, you know, just in case. Gold meshes with that type of product.”
Whether you think the world is ending soon or not, it is obvious that Costco has done research on their customer base and sees an opportunity to lean into the distrust of the government and US dollar.
The interesting part of this story is that gold has been available to individuals for decades in a variety of places. Anyone with a brokerage account can buy the spot gold ETF. Turn on late night television and you’ll find a plethora of commercials anxiously waiting to help you get your hands on the commodity.
But it seems like that is not enough. Costco, which boasts incredible distribution to its 66 million paying members, appears to have opened an easier way for people to purchase gold. That is surprising because other retailers, such as Amazon, have been selling gold for a long time.
Regardless of the reason behind Costco’s success in selling physical gold, it is obvious that people want to hedge their exposure to the US dollar.