Sam’s Club offers holiday shoppers a virtual ‘Christmas Vacation’

Sam’s Club customers can digitally immerse themselves in a classic 1980s holiday film.

The wholesale club retailer has created an online shopping experience that lets customers visit a virtual reproduction of the Griswold home from the 1989 movie, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” After clicking on an icon of main character Clark Griswold (who was played by comedy legend Chevy Chase), consumers are brought to a customizable homescreen featuring an interactive picture of the outside of the fictional family’s house.

Customers can click on small red buttons next to certain features of the house, such as holiday decorations, and be led to an instant “buy now” popup screen. Visitors can also zoom in, ring a virtual doorbell, and obtain bits of trivia about the making of the film. A customizable view of the inside of the home offers more instantly shoppable holiday items.

“Clark’s goal of creating perfect moments and memories for his family for it to be greatly interrupted by things outside of his control is basically the story of 2020,” Sam’s Club said in a corporate blog post announcing the new virtual holiday shopping experience. “And we’re here to celebrate the fact that even though nothing has gone to plan for 2020, and things continue to ‘go wrong,’ we can still, as Clark says, have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas.’”

Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart Inc. operates nearly 600 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.