Sam’s Club Needs More Business (Customers)
By George Anderson
If Wal-Mart has a weakest link in its US business, that would be the retailer’s Sam’s Club unit, says Bloomberg News. The warehouse club division represents 13 percent of Wal-Mart’s domestic sales and it is growing more slowly than the division one stores and supercenters.
Sam’s business is also growing more slowly than rival Costco. Over the past year, same-store sales at Sam’s grew 4 percent while Costco was up 5.9 percent.
To grow its business, Sam’s is concentrating on attracting a greater number of commercial customers. Bloomberg reports that business shoppers “spend twice as much as individuals”.
Moderator’s Comment: Why has Costco been more successful
than Sam’s?
There’s nothing new here. We’ve been hearing that Sam’s
Club is going to focus more on business customers for a number of years and
still Costco remains ahead of the game. [George
Anderson – Moderator]