Shownotes
In this Omni Talk Retail episode, recorded live from NRF 2026 at Vusion’s booth, Todd Garner, Chief Product Officer at Sam’s Club, joins Anne Mezzenga and Chris Walton to share how Scan & Go has become a defining pillar of the Sam’s Club member experience and what’s coming next as agentic AI reshapes shopping.
With Scan & Go now approaching 40% member adoption and nearing its 10-year anniversary, Sam’s Club is using its limited SKU, membership-based model to reduce friction, shorten the distance between intent and purchase, and unlock new personalized, agent-driven experiences. Todd explains why mobile-first shopping, curated assortments, and AI-powered insights give Sam’s Club a unique advantage and how all of it ladders back to engagement, renewal, and loyalty.
Key Topics covered:
- Scan & Go nearing 40% adoption and what’s driving member usage
- Why membership engagement and renewal matter more than individual feature metrics
- How Scan & Go fits into a broader frictionless shopping ecosystem
- Why limited SKUs make agentic shopping more powerful, not less
- Using mobile-first experiences to shorten intent-to-purchase
- The role of AI in merchandising, discovery, and personalized insights
- How Sam’s Club thinks about product, associate tools, and member experience together
- What Todd is most excited to deliver next as Scan & Go approaches its 10-year milestone
Stay tuned to Omni Talk Retail for continued coverage from NRF 2026, and stop by Vusion booth #4921 to say hello.
#NRF2026 #SamsClub #ScanAndGo #RetailAI #AgenticAI #MembershipRetail #RetailTechnology #OmniTalk #RetailInnovation
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Transcripts
Hello, everyone.
Speaker B:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker B:I'm Chris Walton.
Speaker C:And I'm Anne Mazinga.
Speaker B: ive from New York City at NRF: Speaker B: re in the Vuzion booth, booth: Speaker B:Thank you to them for sponsoring all of our work this week.
Speaker B:Now, standing between us, Ann, is a man who needs no introduction.
Speaker B:He was here with us last year.
Speaker B:And he is Todd Garner, the Chief Product Officer at Sam's Club.
Speaker B:Todd, welcome back to omnitalk.
Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker A:Great to be here with you both.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well, Todd, since it's been a little while since you've been on, maybe give our new listeners just a little bit of a recap on what all you oversee in your role at Sam's.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:So at sams, I'm the Chief Product Officer.
Speaker A:My job is basically to make sure that we deliver membership defining experiences and we deliver tools that help make our associates lives and jobs better.
Speaker A:So we're responsible for the strategy and the execution across our membership, our merchandising, our in club tools, supply chain, merchandise tools, the whole gambit.
Speaker C:So the reason that Sam's runs so smoothly is you and your team.
Speaker C:Is that what you mean?
Speaker A:Hey, there's a large team that makes sure Sam's run smoothly.
Speaker A:We like to do our part.
Speaker A:But it's a big team.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a club.
Speaker A:Club of people.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker B:Making it work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I always forget how just pervasive your role is.
Speaker B:That's really unique at Sam's.
Speaker B:I always get remembered of that every time I talk to you all these, at these conferences.
Speaker B:All right, so you mentioned Scandago within that opening.
Speaker B:You know, we've talked a lot about it on omnitalk throughout the years.
Speaker B:I'm curious, like, what defines the Scan and Go shopper?
Speaker B:And then was there anything as you were learning about how Scan and Go works that surprised you over the years?
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:So at Sam's Club, one of the things that we're always trying to do, we're a membership model.
Speaker A:And so what we're trying to do is make sure that we deliver those membership defining experiences.
Speaker A:And a key piece of that is actually experiences in themselves.
Speaker A:We want to reduce the friction, we want to make it easier, we want to make it more convenient.
Speaker A:Well, Scan and Go does exactly that.
Speaker A:There's no lines, there's no queues.
Speaker A:And especially when you consider our new exit tech, we've got a ecosystem that really allows you to walk in Walk out just as quickly as you possibly can because you can do all of that interaction on your phone.
Speaker A:And I think one of the things that we found is, as we've gone down the Scan and Go journey, is that the opportunities are incredible.
Speaker A:We're approaching 40% of our users.
Speaker B:I was going to ask you, is it 40?
Speaker A:Now we're approaching 40% of our users are actually using Scan and Go as their mode, as their way of shopping, as they're going through.
Speaker A:And when you think about that, that means they've got their phone out.
Speaker A:That means that they've got the ability for us to serve them insights to make agentic shopping more frequent, more accessible.
Speaker A:And the limits are just, they're incredible of what we can do and how we can provide so many differentiated experiences for our members.
Speaker B:So, Todd, check my math here, but if memory serves, you're at 30% usage last year.
Speaker B:So that's what, 33% growth over the year before in Scan and Go uses.
Speaker A:We're excited about what it's delivering, and our members.
Speaker A:It's resonating with me.
Speaker A:I'm excited about it.
Speaker C:Well, Todd, what is that?
Speaker C:So, yes, that is a great percentage.
Speaker C:40% is overwhelming, really.
Speaker C:But what are the real metrics that you're looking at when it comes to Scan and Go usage and adoption?
Speaker C:I mean, is it frequency, is it basket size, is it demographics, using it?
Speaker C:Like, what.
Speaker C:What do you really feel is the most telling about where the future of Scan and Go is going at Sam's?
Speaker A:Yeah, honestly, Scan and Go is part of a larger ecosystem.
Speaker A:We look at all of those metrics that you talked about.
Speaker A:But being a membership model, the first and most important thing for us are how many members do we have and how is our renewal rate.
Speaker A:And when we look at all of the different metrics that we have that actually contribute to that, Scan and Go is part of that ecosystem.
Speaker A:But membership, for us, it's the lifeblood of where we are.
Speaker A:And so sales, Scan and Go usage, all of these other things are just measures of engagement that actually help us tell us how we're doing as a business.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:That's really cool.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I'm curious too, Todd, like, so we were joking before we even hit record here that, you know, the talk of the show is agentic.
Speaker B:So there's a lot of stuff going on around AI and personalization, but at the end of the day, you all are a club.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, you have a limited assortment, a limited assortment of products.
Speaker B:How are you thinking about that and to what degree.
Speaker B:Are you thinking about that topic?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I would actually argue that being a club model with limited SKUs makes agentic shopping and agentic insights even more important.
Speaker B:Oh, how so?
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:When you think about agentic, when you think about AI, when you think about all of these other technolog, what are they trying to do?
Speaker A:They're trying to make lives easier.
Speaker A:They're trying to reduce the space between intent to purchase and actual purchase.
Speaker A:They're trying to give you better insights, better outcomes.
Speaker A:Well, at Sam's club, we've only got a few thousand SKUs and so what that means is let's back all the way up.
Speaker A:First and foremost, we've got to give our merchants the tools so that they can find those best items, that they can get the best pricing.
Speaker A:And Agenta can help us start upstream.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Then once you get in the club, we want to help still make sure that you've got the right experience, we can get you in and out quicker, we can get you to the right items that are most accustomed to what you're looking for because we've got that curated marketplace.
Speaker A:So now that we've got the right items, we've got the right experience in the club and we've got that Scan and Go, coming back to that, we're near 40% adoption.
Speaker A:We actually have a tool that's right in front of you where we can actually serve things up in an even more friendly and efficient manner.
Speaker C:Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker C: like, I accomplished this in: Speaker C:What would that thing be as it pertains to the product experience that you and your team are working on at Sam's?
Speaker A:I'll actually pull the thread all the way through with all of this and I'm going to tie it back to Scan and Go.
Speaker A:Scan and Go is actually approaching 10 years.
Speaker A:This will be our 10th year anniversary of Scan and Go.
Speaker A:And like I said, when that Scan and Go is sitting in front of you, I think our ability to incorporate agent to make a more relevant shopping experience, to overlay filters, extended aisle, additional information, I just think that the potential is incredible and it's something that we're focused on right now and I'm really excited to see what we deliver in 26.
Speaker C:So something that people don't even.
Speaker C:Members don't even need to really think about doing or participate in doing, it's just served up to them based on what you know about them as a member.
Speaker C:You know, personalizing that experience.
Speaker A:It's that it's continuing to remove friction and it's continuing to deliver just a really differentiated shopping experience.
Speaker A:I think we've got a platform that really sets us up for success in a way that few others can.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I would not disagree.
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker B: t year when we got you in NRF: Speaker A:If everything's going right, I love it.
Speaker A:But now I gotta ask.
Speaker A:You're a member, You're a plus member.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:You're using scan and go.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Tell your friends.
Speaker B:Yeah, I will, man.
Speaker B:I, I, I don't think I could talk about it any more, so.
Speaker B:I love Scandago.
Speaker A:I love what it does.
Speaker B:I love everything that you can do with it, especially the angles of how it can communicate to the consumer and your customer.
Speaker B:One to one.
Speaker B:That's key.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Alright, man, great seeing you again.
Speaker A:Likewise.
Speaker A:Appreciate y' all having us.
Speaker B:What do you have on tap for the rest of the day?
Speaker A:I'm gonna check out some of these booths.
Speaker A:We got some incredible vendors out there and continue to see how we can innovate at Sam's Club.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:All right, well, Todd Garner, Sam's Club, thanks for checking out our coverage.
Speaker B:We're gonna be here all rest of Monday and tomorrow as well, thanks to the Vuzion Group, or Vuzion, now that they're called for, sponsoring our content at the conference.
Speaker B:And until next time, be careful out there.