The strength of the dollar led to weak sales, higher employee benefit costs and lower foreign earnings, which adversely affected the Costco Wholesale Corp.'s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings as it declined 6%. 

The warehouse retailer basically sells items in bulk to its paid members and has fought with a consumer-spending cutback in a destabilized economy. The weakened economy has led to the company missing analysts' earnings expectations in each of the first three quarters of the fiscal year.

On the other hand, smaller rival BJ's Wholesale Corp. was successful in outperforming Costco in terms of sales this year as consumers increasingly stick to discounters. 
A profit of $374 million, or $0.85 a share was posted by the company for the quarter ended 30th August, down from $398 million, or $0.90 a share, a year earlier. Meanwhile revenue dropped 3.1% to $22.38 billion.

Market Intelligence firm Thomson Reuters had surveyed analysts who predicted earnings of 77 cents and revenue of $22.34 billion.

A fall by 3% to $21.9 billion was witnessed during the period in sales, with same-store sales exempting currency changes and gasoline sales rising 1%. It fell 1% in the U.S.

But, the company specified that net sales were $6.85 billion for the five weeks ended Oct. 4, a 3% increase on the prior year period. When currency changes and gasoline sales were excluded, same store sales rose 4%, including a 3% increase in the U.S.