Costco’s DoorDash Launch Came Too Late to Touch the Quarter It Reports September 24
Costco reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on September 24, and the splashy DoorDash partnership everyone is talking about played no part in the numbers. What actually drove results reveals something more important about where this stock's real value lives.
Costco (NASDAQ:COST | COST Price Prediction) reports fiscal fourth-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, September 24, 2026, and the same-day delivery tie-up with DoorDash (NASDAQ:DASH) that put more than 4,000 Costco products inside a third-party app went live after the quarter closed.
The quarter covers the roughly 16-week period ending in late August or early September, so the new channel cannot contribute to reported sales or earnings. Instead, the numbers will show a digital business already running hot without help, and a membership engine driving earnings quality. The stock enters the quarter at $893.93, down 7.01% over the past month.
Why the Launch Cannot Touch This Quarter
Fiscal Q4 2026 was in the books before DoorDash opened, and management has disclosed no fee split, margin effect, or volume target for the partnership.
Costco’s digital story was already accelerating. Fiscal Q3 2026 posted digitally-enabled comparable sales of 21.5% and e-commerce site and app traffic up 37%, following +22.6% digital comps in Q2.
Management described same-day delivery as “a strong driver of loyalty as it is often our highest spending members who are using this service.”
Where the Earnings Quality Actually Lives
Membership economics remain the moat. Q3 brought 82.9 million paid members, membership fees of $1.37 billion (up 10.7%), and a worldwide renewal rate of 89.7%.
Costco trades at a P/E of 45x, which leaves little room for a soft membership number.
The DoorDash deal is defensive against Walmart (NYSE:WMT), whose Walmart+ bundles same-day delivery, and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), whose Prime and Whole Foods set the delivery benchmark Costco members compare against.
Costco is choosing partnership over vertical integration. Management said in May, “At the current time, we’re happy with the partners that we have.”
DoorDash gains a trophy assortment; Costco gains reach without building last-mile infrastructure. Whether that lifts basket size or reshuffles existing orders is the question for future quarters.
Bull and Bear Case for COST Stock
The bull case rests on the membership flywheel: renewal near 90%, executive penetration at three-quarters of sales, and digital growth north of 20% before DoorDash adds anything. Analysts carry a target of $1,072.20.
The bear case is valuation and reaction risk. Costco’s Q3 report fell 3.91% day-of on a mere 0.14% beat, and Q2 2025’s miss produced a 6.07% day-of drop. At 45 times earnings, an in-line quarter can sting.
The key variable is whether digital comps and executive-member growth held their recent pace through August.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
