New Sam's Club Model Ditches Checkout Lines

Sam's Club is testing out a checkout-free future, leaning into its Scan & Go app that allows customers a brick-and-mortar shopping experience, sans the lines. CNBC reports that the member's club is reopening a store in Dallas that will allow customers to shop in a show-room like space, scanning items on their phones as they browse everything from diamonds and cars to their signature Member's Mark fare. "It really eliminates the most painful part of these membership clubs, which is the long lines to check out," says Peter Keith, a senior research analyst at Piper Sandler.

• New concepts: The Walmart-owned superstore's new model relies on an app they launched in 2016. Customers are free to browse and shop by scanning items in their cart as they go. The new setup also displays items that were previously available online only, like a 12-foot Christmas tree, and gives four times the amount of space for workers to prepare orders. Customers may retrieve prepared orders in a pickup area or opt for home delivery. Novel exit technology allows customers to walk out of the store without having receipts checked (similar to Amazon's "Just Walk Out" model).
• New customers: Per SFGate, Sam's Club is attracting a younger customer base. In the past two years, Gen Z membership has grown by 68%. University of San Francisco marketing professor Sonja Martin Poole tells the outlet that creating a "seamless, flexible" experience that offers the best of in-store and online shopping is exactly what younger shoppers want.
• Old problem: The superstore's innovation may help it stand out against its biggest competitor, Costco. Though the two companies have the same number of stores in the US, Costco comes out on top revenue-wise, bringing in $176.63 billion in net sales in the last fiscal year, compared with Sam's Club's $86.2 billion. While Costco boasts a 93% member renewal rate, Sam's Club CEO Chris Nicholas says his company is betting on cutting-edge technology, with stores that feel "what it's like to shop in the future," per CNBC.

(This woman secretly lived inside a store sign for a year.)