In this Fast Five Short, we discuss how Sam's Club is revolutionizing the shopping experience by opening a new store in Grapevine, Texas, that eliminates traditional checkout lines. Instead, customers will utilize a smartphone app called Scan and Go to scan items as they shop, culminating in a streamlined exit through a computer vision-based archway. This innovative approach allows for the display of unique online-only products, like a twelve-foot Christmas tree and a five-carat lab-grown diamond, directly linked to the app for easy access. The store is designed to enhance e-commerce fulfillment, providing staff with significantly more space for preparing curbside pickups and home deliveries. With a membership model that enables them to enforce this new shopping method, Sam's Club is poised to learn from this experiment and adapt to the evolving preferences of tech-savvy consumers, positioning itself ahead of competitors like Costco in the retail landscape.

Takeaways:

• Sam's Club is innovating by opening a store without checkout lines, enhancing the shopping experience.
• The new store in Grapevine, Texas, emphasizes a tech-savvy approach using a smartphone app.
• Sam's Club is expanding its e-commerce fulfillment capabilities with a larger area for online orders.
• The store will feature online-only items, including luxury products that members can access easily.
• The Scan and Go app will allow customers to shop efficiently, improving overall store operations.
• This new model positions Sam's Club ahead of competitors like Costco in the digital shopping space.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Sam's Club
• CNBC
• Amazon
• Costco
• Instacart
• Mercedes

For the full episode, sponsored by the the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Ownit AI, Avalara, Mirakl, and Ocampo Capital, head here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0O2k1chOTM&t=501s

Sam's club plans to open a new store without checkout lines.

According to CNBC, Sam's club is opening a club that will have no checkout lanes, will display online only items, and will have a larger area for fulfilling e commerce orders for curbside pickup and home delivery.

In this new club, which will open in mid October, customers will have to use a smartphone app called Scan and go to ring up their purchases as they walk through the aisles and then pass through a computer vision based archway to leave the store in the area typically reserved for cash registers.

The company will instead display online only items as wide ranging as a twelve foot Christmas tree and at a five carat lab grown diamond that members can scan QR codes and go straight to those items in the app.

I think there's even a Mercedes like G Wagon or something, right?

Yeah, I heard some type of suv.

I don't know if it's a G wagon or not, but I'm not super familiar with the Mercedes line because you can decide my price range now.

You can be.

Store workers will also have about four times more space for preparing customers e commerce orders for curbside pickup and home delivery, according to Sam's club executives.

Chris, I know you love this new store concept from Sam's club, but just how much do you love it?

Well, and have you ever seen spinal tap?

I have.

Yeah.

I'm an eleven on this 111.

Turn it up to eleven.

New store in Grapevine, Texas.

Yes, I love it for a lot of reasons.

I think.

One, unlike Amazon go, the setup doesn't require inflexible merchandising, which we'll talk about later, for sure.

But more importantly, the overall setup that is being tested has already been tested with great regularity throughout Sam's club's chain.

So, for example, scan and go adoption is 30% chain wide.

Yeah.

And in May, Sam's club said that it planned to roll out the automated archways, the computer vision archways that scan your, your cart and, you know, correlate it to your receipt.

Yep.

And that they're already going to plan to roll that out to all stores by the end of the year.

So the only big difference here with this store is that Sam's Club is taking the Audi, basically taking the audacious, audacious stance and saying, you can't shop this store any other way.

That's what's new here.

Yeah.

And, you know, Sam's is also forcing.

The only difference is the archways.

Right.

Right.

And so this is what's, this is what's new about it.

So I don't know all the puts and takes involved in this, but to me, it's a logical extension of the next iteration of now as a concept store idea.

And now they're bringing this grapevine store online, which is now a second concept store idea.

And for that, I applaud them.

It's a great way to do innovation and to learn what the more technically affluent generations are going to want from a warehouse club experience as you go forward.

They're only going to learn from this, and they're going to get better at what they do, for sure.

And I think that one important thing to point out here is that Sam's club is uniquely positioned to do this in a way that I think most grocers are not.

And that is because they have members.

It's a membership based club.

So they can require that you shop this store a certain way.

And I think that that's an advantage that they have.

And again, to your point, is definitely worth testing, but I think it fits this overall theme here that we keep hearing about.

At least I keep hearing about a grocery shop wherever.

Yes, you may have to shop with the scan and go app or the caper card from Instacart, but there's enough incentive now for the consumer to pay this off.

And I think that's what's starting to change here with some of these required shopping tactics that we're seeing deployed by grocers and clubs.

Yeah, that's a great point, too.

The last thing I'd say on this one, I think the headlines are potentially giving this a little bit of a disservice to the emphasis on the checkout free nature of the store, because I think what Sam's club is really doing here is they've created a first truly personalized digital shopping experience where they can understand everything that's happening in the store, where the customers are going, what they're scanning, what they're putting in their cart, what they're leaving the store with, and that's the power of the data.

And they're also, don't forget earlier this year, a headline we didn't cover on our show.

They're piping retail media into scan and go app, which is also going to be very powerful, to your point, about keeping track of your budget as you're in the store.

And the last point I make, and I think this is really important, they're way ahead of Costco on this.

Yes.

Like Costco hasn't even sniffed in any of these directions.

And so when you think about this ten or 15 years down the line, then it becomes really powerful.