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Last week, Costco chief executive Richard Galanti told investors on the retailer’s second-quarter conference call that its foray into online grocery sales was “positive year-to-date and growing.”

Instacart delivers groceries from 441 of the retailer’s 519 U.S. warehouses and the service will be rolled out to the remaining locations by the end of 2018.

The move comes after a record year of bricks-and-mortar expansion for Costco in Canada, one of its strongest markets, and at a time when Walmart and the country’s large conventional grocers have announced or rolled out online grocery options.

All of them, industry experts say, are eyeing Amazon.com Inc.’s strategic moves with Whole Foods and their implications for traditional grocery retail.

“This shows how Amazon is affecting the entire system, including Costco,” said Sylvain Charlebois, agriculture expert and Dean of management at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

“Of all the retailers which have benefited from our car economy, Costco is at the top. But everyone is going online now, even though at the same time they are trying to increase foot traffic.”

Increasing sales and foot traffic hasn’t been a problem for Costco or Walmart in Canada. Same-store sales at Costco Canada in the second quarter ended Feb. 18 were robust, rising 8.7 per cent. Walmart Canada, meanwhile, reported Canadian same-store sales of 2.9 per-cent in the period ended Jan. 31.

While the retailers do not directly break out their food sales in Canada, their dominance is evident in the shrinking market share of Canada’s traditional grocery retailers — a drop to 75 per cent of retail food sales as of the third quarter of 2017 from 85 per cent in 2007, according to Statistics Canada.