Sam’s Club is piloting a new Scan & Go service, dubbed Scan & Ship, that offers a new way for members to get merchandise home from its locations.
The move comes at a time when parent Walmart is adding services to its membership functions, whether at its namesake banner, where the company offers Walmart+ for $98 a year, or, in this case, its warehouse club operation.
The Scan & Ship pilot program works with the Scan & Go feature in the Sam’s Club app, allowing members to place direct-to-home orders in store aisles by scanning merchandise included in the service.
Scan & Ship provides an immediate in-club solution for shoppers purchasing items that require large vehicles for transport such as playsets, patio furniture, mattresses, large televisions and grills, Walmart noted. Shoppers can purchase an item and initiate a shipment, with arrival usually occurring within three to five business days, according to Walmart, all in one digital transaction. Scan & Ship also gives members an opportunity to select alternate colors and sizes unavailable at the physical club.
Walmart asserted that the new service demonstrates how the Sam’s Club app is maturing and evolving with member shopping behaviors. The Sam’s Club app experienced tremendous growth last year, Walmart added, with 9.6 million downloads. The app generated a 4.9 app store rating, which Walmart suggested represents satisfaction with the Scan & Go service, given that Sam’s Club expanded it to fuel stations in 2020 and saw a 43.5% adoption rate increase year-over-year in the first quarter.
Sam’s Club is piloting the Scan & Shop app at three locations including Sam’s Club Now, its Dallas-based innovation lab, to give it a chance to gather critical member feedback and modify functionality within the app before scaling to additional locations.
In addition to piloting Scan & Ship, Sam’s Club launched a new feature at all clubs in July that gives members who don’t have its app a chance to demo the Scan & Go feature. As such, they can try the service without downloading that app and taking up space on their devices.
“We challenge ourselves every day to develop and execute convenient solutions that disrupt the warehouse model and provide additional value to our members,” said Tim Simmons, SVP and chief product officer at Sam’s Club, in announcing the pilot. “Just like Scan & Go, Scan & Ship gives members greater control of their shopping experience. It’s exciting to see our team develop and launch the Scan & Ship pilot so quickly, and it’s got great potential to deliver the ultimate omnichannel member experience across our entire chain.”
