Courtesy of Walmart
Sam’s Club is launching display ads as part of its Scan & Go mobile checkout experience.
Scan & Go, a feature of the Sam’s Club mobile app, enables members shopping in-club to use their mobile devices to scan items as they shop, complete payment, and avoid the checkout line.
With the new offering, members who opt-in will see display ads on the cart page that refresh after each new product scan, helping them discover products related to the scanned items. Sam’s Club already offers an extra discount on select items for Scan & Go users.
For advertisers, the display-ad feature enables brands to reach members at the point of conversion to help drive incremental sales of associated or halo products. Advertisers also gain a new way to measure member shopping behavior and ad performance in-club with closed-loop attribution, including tracking metrics like return on ad spend (ROAS), click-through rate (CTR), incremental sales, and conversion rate.
The Walmart-owned club said its retail media network, called Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP), becomes the first to integrate ads in a mobile, self-checkout app experience. At launch, Unilever will be among the advertisers delivering display ads.
“This new capability reflects our member obsession and commitment to ensuring ads reach the right members at the right time in their shopping journeys,” said Diana Marshall, EVP and chief growth officer of Sam's Club, in a statement.
Sam’s Club noted that adoption of Scan & Go has “surged by 50% in the past three years” with one in three members becoming a regular user. The club said Scan & Go’s primary appeal is skipping the checkout line. Earlier this year, Sam’s Club introduced a new AI-powered technology that confirms Scan & Go members have paid for all items in their shopping carts without requiring an associate to check their receipts.
Among other U.S. retailers, Kroger and 7-Eleven offer similar mobile checkout technology, while handheld scanners work similarly at grocers such as Stop & Shop.
However, self-scan checkout isn’t widely used across grocers. In 2018, Walmart suspended its Scan & Go app due to poor feedback and low customer participation. Wegman’s in late 2022 ended its SCAN app due to shopper theft.
Sam’s Club’s display ads rollout comes as in-store media is being forecast as the next major growth area for retail media. Beyond mobile devices, other potential spots for in-store retail media, according to Econsultancy, include endcap screens, ads at the point of sale (such as at self-checkout), and screens on fridge/freezer doors.
EMarketer recently predicted that while in-store retail media spend will triple to over $1 billion by 2028, it will still represent less than 1% of total omnichannel retail media ad spending. EMarketer said, “Lagging tech capabilities, competing priorities, and unproven new formats create an uncertain path forward for retailers.”