Sam’s Club solicits customer input on private label goods
Sam’s Club has unveiled a customer-centric product development strategy for its Member’s Mark private label brand.
The membership warehouse club retailer, a division of Walmart Inc. announced a new consumer-driven initiative that engages with customers in an effort to have them shape and contribute to Member’s Mark product innovation and development. (In 2022, Sam’s Club relaunched Member’s Mark to become sustainability-driven with more than 1,200 new, renovated and reformulated and items and a new tagline, "Made with Our Member and Planet in Mind.")
Through its Member’s Mark Community, an opt-in network of more than 50,000 consumers, Sam’s Club receives input on products before they reach stores, with members voting on exclusive flavors to testing and trialing new items. This continuous flow of feedback serves as the cornerstone for guiding the large-scale development of products, ensuring that offerings consistently align with members' evolving needs and preferences, the company said.
For example, to help create a new Member’s Mark grill offering, the product development team identified avid grillers through a questionnaire and then distributed 20 prototypes to members in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Community members tested the grills while filming and reviewing their experiences, enabling the development team to include specially tailored features.
Currently, the community primarily seeks feedback from customers who mirror the broader Sam's Club membership base. Its next phase will offer all Sam's Club shoppers the opportunity to join.
"At Sam’s Club, we have a long history of listening to feedback from our members and putting their needs at the center of everything we do," said Megan Crozier, chief merchant, Sam’s Club. "It’s an integral part of how we develop our Member’s Mark products, and in today’s ‘experience economy,’ our approach sets us apart from other retailers in ways that deliver real value to our members."
The Member’s Mark Community goes beyond traditional focus groups and surveys, Crozier continued, with true engagement that will shape the future of retail by creating more personalized experiences for our members.
Specific goals Sam’s Club has set for Member’s Mark products to meet by 2025 include:
- Meeting animal welfare guidelines
- Antibiotics-free poultry
- Sustainably sourced seafood
- Cage-free eggs
- Fair Trade-certified coffee, tea and cocoa
- Responsibly sourced paper, pulp and timber
- 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging
Based in Bentonville, Ark., Sam’s Club is a division of Walmart Inc. operating nearly 600 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.