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October 9, 2024
Will Sam’s Club Members Accept a Scan & Go-Only Experience?
Sam’s Club will open a digital-only club later this month with no checkout lanes. Customers will scan QR codes and pay with the Scan & Go app, then walk out without a cashier’s assistance.
According to a report from CNBC, shoppers also won’t need to wait in line for an associate to check their paper receipts. Instead, AI-powered technology — supported by an array of cameras and rolled out earlier this year — handles verification. The Walmart-owned warehouse club told Business Insider in late April that more than half of customers at locations where the technology had been deployed were using the option to pay and go, helping shoppers exit the door 23% faster.
Peter Keith, senior research analyst at Piper Sandler, told CNBC that Scan & Go “really eliminates the most painful part of these membership clubs, which is the long lines to check out.”
The new club will open in mid-October in the Dallas area.
Technology, including investments in building out e-commerce, continues to be a key differentiator for Sam’s Club against its main rival, Costco, which is twice as productive as Sam’s Club. Costco only began introducing self-checkout stations over the last two years.
The Dallas location will serve as a testing ground for in-store innovations. Beyond the elimination of cashiers, the store features four times more space for preparing customers’ e-commerce orders for curbside pickup or home delivery as well as a pizza robot able to make up to 100 pizzas an hour.
In areas usually reserved for checkouts, the store will feature online-only items, such as a 12-foot Christmas tree or sectional for the living room. Members will scan QR codes to gain information and purchase the items for delivery.
“It’s kind of the physical manifestation of a journey we’re trying to go on as a company,” Sam’s Club CEO Chris Nicholas told CNBC. “The idea is that over time, we will be 100% digital engagement as a business, and you’ve got to prove that things work before you scale them.”
Nicholas acknowledged that with only one in three members currently using Scan & Go, the all-digital store’s test will explore further acceptance of the technology.
The test comes after Amazon in April announced plans to remove its “Just Walk Out” technology — which allows customers to shop and leave the store without going to a register — from Amazon Fresh stores, replacing it with its Dash Cart smart shopping cart device.
At the time, Amazon said feedback showed customers preferred the smart shopping cart. In a statement from April, Amazon said that while customers “enjoyed the benefit of skipping the checkout line with Just Walk Out, they also wanted the ability to easily find nearby products and deals, view their receipt as they shop, and know how much money they saved while shopping throughout the store.”
Amazon has also been closing several Amazon Go convenience stores featuring cashierless technology but indicated that it remains committed to building out the technology with third-party merchants. In early September, Amazon announced that the Just Wak Out tech was expanding to more sports stadiums and universities.
Some retailers, including Walmart, Kroger, and Dollar General, have experimented with self-checkout-only stores, but other stores have been removing self-checkout stations or limiting the number of items that can be purchased at self-checkout lanes reportedly due to high shrinkage.Wegmans in 2022 announced that it was discontinuing the use of its self-checkout app due to high shoplifting rates, although Sam’s Club’s exit verification technology may solve those issues
Discussion Questions
Do cashierless stores make sense for the warehouse club channel given their challenges with long checkout lines and exit waits?
Do you see a wide majority of members eventually warming to the Scan & Co option?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Melissa Minkow
Director, Retail Strategy, CI&T
Georganne Bender
Principal, KIZER & BENDER Speaking
Bob Amster
Principal, Retail Technology Group
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A lot of members already use this technology at Sam’s Club, so it’s not like the business is rolling it out blind. That said, having no checkouts might be off-putting to those not used to scan and go or to those who dislike it. There is also a small risk of theft, but this is minimized by receipt checks at the door and random checks. Overall, I see this as a far more practical and sensible system than automated stores or smart carts. And if it works more widely it will save Sam’s on staffing costs and floorspace.
Sam’s Club is taking a big step forward with its upcoming Scan&Go-only store, addressing pain points that have frustrated shoppers for years. The transition to this system will create a more efficient shopping experience tailored to the needs of busy customers. Many members are likely to warm up to the Scan&Go experience as they become more familiar with its convenience. Ensuring that the technology remains user-friendly and enhances the overall shopping experience, rather the complicating it, will be key to its acceptance.
They make sense – and customers will love them – until a scanner goes down, a QR code reads the wrong price, or any one of a hundred unanticipated problems occurs, and then said customer finds that not only can they not check out quickly, they may be unable to check out at all. So: cashier light…fine, cashier free: nyet!
Cashier free is out of step. The UK grocery scene makes extensive use of scan and shop technology, but it’s rare to find a store without at least some manned checkouts!
Indeed: left unexplained in the story – my apologies if I missed it – is why Sam’s made the quantum leap from a mix of staffed/self to 100% self. Assuming that few – if any – areas can support having a mix of regular and 100% self-check stores in them, I would think those opting for a cashier will be out-of-luck (and that seems a considerable number since their own data suggests something like a 50/50 split).
I love this. I’ve been passionate about more JWO out technology, and while it’s proving challenging to roll that out for a myriad of reasons, this accomplishes the same thing.
BJ’s customers will accept cashierless-only stores,,,if the process is frictionless. Good luck with that.
Sounds like this store will be a testing ground for new technologies. It won’t be for everyone but those who are unsure might warm to it, and there are plenty of other options in Dallas for those who don’t.
Glitches could be a problem so Sam’s will need a strong contingency plan. It amazes me that in 2024 we still come across stores that can’t function when their computers are down.
I suspect Sam’s Club has already made the decision to roll this out. Much like self-checkout at other retailers, confirmation bias will influence the findings.
Great option for any club store. Rather than have to get an associate to scan large items or remove large packs from cart for scanning, just load and go. And as noted elsewhere, a great improvement in convenience and checkout speed with only a modest adjustment over existing self-scanning checkouts at Sam’s Club that are widely used. As checkout time decreases, could increase orders handled per hour for Sam’s club.
This technology, while interesting from a cost point of view, is still not ready to a large rollout. It will work well. Someday. But not today.
Cashierless stores make sense for warehouse clubs like Sam’s because they solve the biggest pain point — long checkout lines. However, getting a wide majority of members to embrace Scan & Go won’t happen overnight.
Usually people resist change, especially when it comes to technology. If Sam’s Club can prove that it’s faster, more efficient, and secure, members will adopt it over time. Until then, they’ll need to push harder to convince skeptical shoppers