Sam’s Club reveals plan to eliminate checkout lanes completely with major change:
Sam’s Club, the Walmart-owned membership warehouse, is rolling out a major change to its grocery payment system and embracing artificial intelligence (AI).
The retail giant plans to phase out traditional checkouts across its 600 stores and create a friction-free shopping experience which will include customers scanning goods on the go with an app and then having and AI scanner verify the goods as customers leave. The technology would eliminate the need for receipt checks at the door.
The system, known as “Scan & Go,” was initially launched in April 2024 and allows members to use the Sam’s Club mobile app to scan their products.
The latest announcement adds the AI check, known as “Just Walk”/”Just Go” exit, to the process and will see the option of traditional checkouts being eliminated.
The new plans were announced by Chris Nicholas, Sam’s Club president and CEO, who outlined the company’s growth ambitions at its 2025 Investment Community Meeting last week.
“This is one of the fastest, most scalable transformations happening in retail today,” Nicholas said. “We’re investing with intention — in our fleet, our associates and the member experience — to become the world’s best club retailer.”
Making me do more of the work is not improving the member experience.
You know, gentle reader, I go to the local Sam’s Club once or twice a week. I have almost since we moved to Springfield, and I’ve been a member for, what, 25 years? But I am not going to do this.
For one, I’m an old curmudgeon now For two, as a longtime remote worker, my interactions with the cashiers at Sam’s Club represent some of the only in-person contacts with people on a regular basis. So I am not going to load the corporate app onto my phone so that I can scan all the goods and to let it try to track me all day long. Just so that the corporation can get a couple extra nickels from me.
Why do I say that this rhymes? Remember when some gunslingin’ marketin’ genius decided to try to make Walmart more upscale, resulting in almost $2,000,000,000 in lost sales?
I imagine this will go that way, kind of like how Walmart went all-in on self-checkouts and then pulled back.
But it will be a year or two without Sam’s Club for us. And we’ll see if Costco captures us as it has so many of our friends.
I let my Sam’s Club membership lapse a couple of years ago because we were only buying a couple of things there anymore, but before I did, I used the Scan & Go app exclusively. It was so, so much better than waiting in a line to check out. I still haven’t gotten around to uninstalling the app
We are/soon-to-be-were Plus members, which meant we could get into the store an hour early on weekdays. I was generally in and out with a cart of varying fullness in 15 or 20 minutes.
It’s only 10 minutes away compared to Costco which is 20 or 25 (on the other side of Springfield, which is not as sprawling as St. Louis or KC, but my expectations have shifted accordingly).
So I cannot wait for them to reverse this ill-conceived initiative. I hope it doesn’t take too long.
Geez, the world designed by millenials and Gen-Z living in cities is going to suck for a bit, but probably only regarding big chains. I cannot see the locally owned shops following these “Make the real world as much like the online world as possible” trends.
I don’t think they will. It’s too cost effective and Luddites are a dying breed.
On a different note, is there anyway to turn on email notifications for replies?
You know, I would agree with you that it’s cost effective for the people who use it. But it can lead to some people not doing it (I’m not sure how great a cohort I’m in, but I cannot be the only one) and the attendant drop in total sales. Or the impact on shrinkage–How good is that AI, after all? The article says it will get rid of receipt checkers, but a couple of Sam’s Club employees monitor the doors even now and stop some customers for a manual check. I mean, several stores, including Walmart, have gone exclusively self-checkout but pulled back. Time will tell.
It looks like self-hosted WordPress doesn’t come with options for emailing users regarding comments.
I could also email you when someone responds.
(He said as though this were a hoppin’ community and that someone would be someone other than him.)