numerator

Stan brings more than two decades of measurement expertise and analytics leadership from PepsiCo, and I've had the pleasure of working together with him in a past life, actually, at PepsiCo.

Then Numerator, Catalina Marketing joins us as Stan takes on the new seat on the IAB board of directors for measurement.

Congratulations to him.

Thank you.

That's M-I-R-A-K-L.com to learn more.

All right, we are back, and our next story comes from the warehouse club world, where new data from Numerator shows Costco continuing to take share and a lot of it.

Now, a quick note on sourcing this story.

These are Numerator's panel-based estimates drawn from its tracking of 200,000 US households, not figures reported by Costco itself.

With that caveat, Numerator estimates Costco added 4.5 million households over the past year and gained roughly $2.5 billion in consumer packaged goods share of wallet.

More than $1 billion of that came from Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons banners, and another $570 million came from independent grocery, gas, and convenience retailers.

But dig a little deeper, and there is one interesting standout story.

The new households skew Gen Z and lower income.

This is the list for September 24th, 2026 M&A update.

[upbeat music] Data firm Numerator released some telling economic numbers this month.

By its count, the annual inflation rate stands at 2.2% through August.

And month over month, Numerator says inflation actually ticked down by one-tenth of a percentage point in August.

Now, these numbers differ a bit from those of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The official numbers show the annual rate of inflation stands at 3.4%, while month over month prices ticked up four-tenths of a percent.

Different inputs, different results, right? But what's truly significant in Numerator's latest Consumer Goods Price Index is that prices for everyday household goods are up 33% since January 2018, and those increases are hitting low-income and Gen Z consumers particularly hard.

Somehow prices for those segments have increased 35% and 39% respectively.

On average, a Costco shopper makes 31 trips annually, spending $99 per visit for a total of $3,000.

Figures that comfortably eclipse competitors include Sam's Club, BJ's, and Numerator said.

Once inside the warehouse, shoppers tend to linger, enticed by a potent cocktail of comforting routine, retail adrenaline, and cheap eats.

Numerator estimates that members made 144 million trips for food court fair last year, effectively putting Costco on the same scale as major regional fast food chains as

In-N-Out

and Zaxby's.

So if you're a CPG and people need to like repurchase those items anyway on that, you know, every 60 day, 90 day basis, those took off.

So I think even looking at like numerator data, Some of the number one items from the entire event were I think like liquid IV packs.

I think cat food or like cat treats or something like that was like a huge one.

And again, just like consumable, you know, the items you're going to repurchase stock up on.

And if you find yourself really wanting to push your third best product because you want to see that grow, you want to see that organic rank increase, bestseller rank, et cetera.

If you're searching for it and you're not finding it, then now is the time to try to start building a lot of that awareness.

I think when I was looking at a numerator report for Prime Day 2026, I think it said it was like even 45%, if not more, people who purchased on Prime Day already knew what they wanted and were just waiting for the sale to happen.

So, I mean, if you have 50% almost of everyone is already loading the cart, we got to get in front of them now.

That's a real concern.

The fatality rate could plateau or even rise even as the absolute number of deaths stays low because the denominator shrinks and the numerator concentrates.

The rate is the thing to watch.

13.8 per 100,000 now.