In this video, Sam's Club provided examples of innovations the new location will test.
Smart shopping lists, wayfinding and navigation, and augmented reality are among the technologies that will be tested at new format Sam’s Club Now.
CEO Jamie Iannone described the plans for the Dallas store, which is set to open in the near future, in a blog post on the company website. The location will serve as a technology lab, a place for Sam’s Club to test and refine new services. The store is 32,000 square feet, about one-fourth the size of a standard Sam’s Club.
One technology that will be piloted is the smart shopping list — autofilled based on purchase data and machine learning, easily adjusted by each shopper as needed in store, and updated throughout the visit as items on the list are scanned and put in a cart.
Sam’s Club also plans on using the digital shopping list plus wayfinding and navigation to show each customer the most efficient route through the store and take them through it.
Augmented reality may also be used to highlight features of different items, including how they are sourced, per the blog post.
Other explorations are also in the works.
“We’ll test electronic shelf labels that will instantly update prices, removing the need to print and replace new item price signs,” Iannone said in the post. “And down the road, we’ll use the more than 700 cameras in the club to help us manage inventory in new ways and optimize the layout to make shopping effortless.”