Experts believe the demand for gold is strong due to its ‘safe haven’ status amid uncertain economic conditions.
Online inventory of gold bars is being snapped up by customers rapidly, said Costco on Tuesday.
“I’ve gotten a couple of calls that people have seen online that we’ve been selling one-ounce gold bars, yes, but when we load them on the site, they’re typically gone within a few hours and we limit two per member,” said Richard Galanti, executive vice president of Costco, during the company’s Q4, 2023, earnings call on Sept. 26. At present, Costco offers 1 ounce, 24 karat gold bars from two suppliers on its website—South Africa’s Rand Refinery and Switzerland’s PAMP Suisse.
The gold bars are being sold for around $1,949 and $1,979 respectively, according to Business Insider, and are air shipped via UPS insured service. Both bars are “member-only” items. A Costco standard membership costs $60 per year, with the executive membership costing $120.
About three months ago, some people on Reddit had complained that they missed out on buying the gold bars when Costco listed them for sale.
Year over year, gold prices have risen from around $1,829 per ounce to about $1,873 as of Sept. 28, an increase of 2.4 percent.
In an interview with CNBC, Jonathan Rose, co-founder of Genesis Gold Group, said that the sale of gold bars is a good promotion strategy for Costco appealing to certain demographics among its shoppers.
“They’ve done their market research. I think it’s a very clever way to get their name in the news and have some great publicity,” he said.
“There is definitely a crossover of people living off the land, being self-sufficient, believing in your own currency. That’s the appeal to gold as a safe haven as people lose faith in the U.S. dollar.”
He pointed out that the safe-haven aspect of investing in gold remains strong given the economic challenges the United States is facing, including regulatory pressure on banks, inflation, and concerns about the commercial real estate market.
