Just a few comments here:
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Bumped from @WTnMLyQ-1flu for info.