• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

Sam’s Club to Open Cashierless Concept Store Next Week

by Chris Albrecht
October 29, 2018October 30, 2018Filed under:
  • Delivery & Commerce
  • Future of Grocery
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Walmart-owned Sam’s Club will open up a new store in Dallas next week that will feature a high-tech take on grocery shopping with cashierless checkout, in-store search and augmented reality. The move will also escalate Walmart’s innovation battle with rival Amazon and its cashierless Go stores.

Dubbed Sam’s Club Now, the new store concept will feature the company’s Scan & Go payment technology. Members who shop at Sam’s Club Now will now be required to use the Scan & Go app to scan and pay for items and serve as the foundation for other features such as:

  • Smart shopping lists. Using machine learning and purchase data, Sam’s Club Now will automatically generate a shopping list for users and automatically update it as items are purchased.
  • In-store navigation. Search for an item and the app will navigate you to its location in the store. Eventually, the app will create an optimal route for shoppers based on their smart shopping list.
  • Augmented Reality. This doesn’t seem to be fully baked yet, but from the company’s corporate blog post: “We’ll bring items to life in the club by sharing new ways to use them, and we’ll work to integrate stories that highlight cool features, including how items are sourced. We also have plans to use augmented reality to transform members’ digital carts into pirate ships. Or maybe you’d prefer a rocket? More on that soon!”

The use of Scan & Go will also mean a new role for us humans. Sam’s Club is creating a new position called the Member Host, which the company wants you to think of like a “concierge of the club.” Instead of just ringing customers up, they will help guide and inform shoppers. This is actually a common theme among companies implementing automation. From Cafe X’s robot barista to Walmart’s shelfbot, the repetitive tasks are taken over by apps or robots and humans are kept around to provide service, expertise and perform higher level tasks.

The launch of this newfangled Sam’s Club Now is a shot across the bow of Amazon, which has been rolling out its Amazon Go stores at a rapid clip, recently, opening up three locations in Seattle, two in Chicago and one in San Francisco (with more to come).

Sam’s Club Now and Amazon Go aren’t exactly analogous to one another. Go stores don’t require any manual scanning, instead relying on banks of cameras and sensors to know what you purchased. And the two stores are going after different markets. Sam’s Club Now takes up 32,000 square feet and is more of a full grocery shopping experience as opposed to smaller, more convenience-like Go stores, which typically hover at around ~2,000 square feet and are meant for grabbing things quickly.

However, they are both pushing a technology-driven change in the way we shop for our food. Between the advancements these two giants are making, as well as the work of startups like Trigo Vision and AIpoly, among others, 2019 is shaping up to be a watershed year for the cashierless retail revolution.


Related

Walmart Canada Debuts New “Fast Lane” Checkout Option

Oh, Canada, your newest Walmart "Urban Supercentre Concept" in Toronto will feature a host of new retail concepts including a "Fast Lane" version of cashierless checkout for people using the My Walmart app. According to a press announcement sent out this week, this new Walmart Supercentre lets shoppers use the…

Here is a List of Cashierless Tech Companies Gunning for Amazon Go

Bloomberg has a story up today about the Portugal-based startup, Sensei, titled "Amazon Go Faces Unlikely Challenge From Checkout-Free Startup." The headline caught my eye because it isn't unlikely at all, in fact, it's quite likely. While Amazon has a substantial headstart in getting cashierless stores to market (10 and…

Standard Cognition Raises $40M for its Cashierless Tech

Standard Cognition announced yesterday that it has raised $40 million Series A round of funding to fuel its cashierless technology solution which creates Amazon Go-like shopping experiences. The round was lead by Initialized Capital and brings the total amount raised by Standard Cognition to $51 million. Amazon kicked off the…

Get the Spoon in your inbox

Just enter your email and we’ll take care of the rest:

Find us on some of these other platforms:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify
Tagged:
  • Amazon
  • Amazon Go
  • cashierless tech
  • Sam's Club
  • Sam's Club Now
  • Walmart

Post navigation

Previous Post Can Jimmy John’s New Pilot Program Help Contactless Payments in the U.S.?
Next Post The Age of the Vegan Butcher Shop Is Here

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Get The Spoon in Your Inbox

The Spoon Podcast Network!

Feed your mind! Subscribe to one of our podcasts!

How ReShape is Using AI to Accelerate Biotech Research
How Eva Goulbourne Turned Her ‘Party Trick’ Into a Career Building Sustainable Food Systems
Combustion Acquires Recipe App Crouton
Next-Gen Fridge Startup Tomorrow Shuts Down
From Starday to Shiru to Givaudan, AI Is Now Tablestakes Across the Food Value Chain

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.