I'm starting to get more of a feeling that Walmart is getting ready to give up on us. We have long stopped being competitive and our members are mostly...let's say not what they used to be. And leadership's ways of dealing with that are focused strictly on layoffs and hour cuts instead of improvements.
Am I worried for nothing?
@1flu I'm not sure where you're getting all your information. As the person below me stated, their store was sold and being turned into something else. The same is true for one close to me. I don't know the name, but it was bought by another company and being redesigned now. Also, I can see your point with the cashier's. But then why are we such a skeleton crew across the country? I have worked several positions, and over time they have not been given any extra wadge budget. Not in HMS, produce, Cafe, bakery or anywhere that it is truly needed. My CM pushed us to work through the holidays with 2 people in HMS. One part time and the lead. It was a mess and they did not care. Then I go shopping at Costco and see their store just as busy as ours but their HMS crew was at least 5 people. I could go on. You typed it out all neatly, but there are lots of holes.
My club closed and is right now in the process of becoming a store called Home Goods. No e-commerce or delivery service. They sold it off.
Walmart owns VUDU so theres your streaming service but they need to make it like Amazon Prime
Just a few comments here:
Wal-Mart will not sell off Sam's Club for multiple reasons. The first being that it is an extremely profitable company. The company closed 60 clubs down last year because they were using the profits from 120 clubs to keep them open. They have taken that money and reinvested it back into the clubs, technology, fixtures, etc. The second being this company is still ran by the Walton's (they own over 50%) and they will never allow it to happen...To be sold off that is
The Sam's Club Now in Dallas is a concept store that will try out multiple things. Could all Sam's be this way? Potentially but no time even close to now. Put in perspective that the Amazon GO stores cost a $1M just for the technology equipment to run the stores and those stores are approx 7-9k feet. The Dallas store is 30k which would be anywhere between $4-5M just for the technology to be installed and not to mention its a much bigger space with means more complexity.
Sam's will continue to turn those stores that were closed into E-Commerce DC's. You might also see normal stores turn into hubs and deliver packages via Fedex and UPS. This is what Target and WMT already do. They are rearranging their backrooms to be a fulfillment center for E-Commerce and also maintain the brick and mortar presence.
Amazon Prime is nothing like Sam's Plus...Amazon has many other segments that Prime is good for such as Books, Movies, Music, Whole Foods, etc. Can't compare the two.
Lastly, Sam's will continue to innovate and change just like every company. Positions will be cut and reinvested in other areas. Just ask your CM one day to look at wage budgets...They aren't going down, they are going up and have been for the past six years. The associates are just being repurposed to different areas to better serve the Member. For example, before Self Checkout you needed more cashiers. Sam's has much fewer cashiers but have more people in Fresh for example as we grew HMS.
Hope this information is helpful.
Sams should just close their doors and try to directly compete with Amazon.... make most locations into DCs... people already pay a membership fee (like Amazon prime).. so that fee could grant them free overnight shipping.. They could also offer other things like Amazon.. maybe their own streaming service! ...kidding about that last part... but I think closing the doors and rebranding is the way to go.
Yeah, I know plenty of companies who give up on multi million dollar companies that are profitable
Stores don’t last forever.
No you're not worried for nothing. I think a lot of us are feeling that way. It's just a waiting game. I know they're trying out this new store. If the new store works out they will probably change the rest into that, and there won't be many positions for that. If it does not work out, I'm betting more and more clubs will close. Eventually selling off the rest. Who knows.