Sam’s Club Is Emerging as One of Walmart’s Most Important Growth Engines

Sam’s Club has always mattered inside the Walmart enterprise, but its recent performance and stated direction suggest it is becoming more central to how Walmart plans to grow. The story is not limited to strong quarterly comps. It is about membership economics, digital adoption, and a fulfillment model that is expanding what “winning” looks like for brands that serve club members.

Performance That Has Held Up Beyond a Single Quarter

Sam’s Club finished fiscal 2025 with a strong fourth quarter, highlighted by comparable sales excluding fuel up 6.8% and ecommerce growth of 24%, along with continued gains in traffic and ticket. Those results were widely covered by retail analysts and aligned with how Walmart described the business in its reporting.

What makes the performance more notable is what happened next.

In Walmart’s first quarter FY26 earnings release, the company reported Sam’s Club U.S. ecommerce sales up 27% year over year and noted that more than half of members now transact digitally in some form, whether through online purchases or in-club digital tools. In the second quarter FY26 earnings release, Walmart reported Sam’s Club U.S. ecommerce growth of 26% and added a detail suppliers should pay attention to: club-fulfilled delivery accounted for nearly half of the ecommerce increase, while curbside pickup grew at a double-digit rate.

The pattern is consistency. Sam’s Club is not relying on a single lever. It is growing in-club and growing digitally, with fulfillment increasingly supported by the club fleet.

Membership as the Core Economic Driver

At Walmart’s 2025 Investment Community Meeting, Sam’s Club leadership laid out ambitions that put recent results in context. The business said it aims to double membership and more than double sales and profit over the next eight to ten years, supported by new club openings, full fleet remodels, and continued investment in technology and experience.

For suppliers and sellers, the key point is not the exact time horizon. It is the operating logic. Sam’s Club is treating membership as the primary growth engine. That influences how the business thinks about assortment, value, service levels, and the kinds of experiences that keep members renewing.

Digital Engagement Is Becoming Normal Member Behavior

Sam’s Club has spent years building digital habits, and the signals are becoming harder to ignore. When Walmart reports that more than half of Sam’s members transact digitally in some form, that is not a marketing line. It is a meaningful indicator of how the shopping journey is shifting.

Digital does not only mean dotcom orders. It includes the tools that reduce friction inside the club and encourage repeat behavior. As more trips are shaped by scanning, app engagement, and digital ordering, product discoverability and content accuracy become operational essentials, not optional enhancements.

Third-party benchmarks also suggest these convenience strategies are resonating. In its 2025 retail study, the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Sam’s Club ahead of several large retail peers, with broad coverage linking its performance to convenience and technology-driven experience improvements.

Clubs Are Becoming More Important to Fulfillment

One of the most practical changes for suppliers is the growing role of clubs in the fulfillment model.

When Walmart highlights club-fulfilled delivery as a major contributor to ecommerce growth at Sam’s Club, it signals that the club is increasingly expected to perform multiple jobs at once: a shopping destination, a pickup node, and a delivery origin point.

That shift can change what “great execution” looks like. Availability discipline becomes more consequential. Pack architecture and shelf readiness matter more. Items that are easy to pick, stage, and deliver without damage or confusion tend to fit the model better as volume grows.

None of this is theoretical. It is embedded in the way Walmart is now describing the sources of Sam’s ecommerce growth.

Competitive Dynamics Are Tightening Inside the Club

Sam’s Club has also emphasized the role of its private brand portfolio. At the 2025 Investment Community Meeting, the company stated that Member’s Mark represented about half of merchandise sales growth over the prior two years.

For national brands, that is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to be precise. The club is clearly investing in private brand as a member value driver. That tends to raise the bar for branded products to be distinct in ways that matter to members, such as quality, function, innovation, or solutions that fit real shopping missions.

It also reinforces that Sam’s is optimizing for member trust and renewal, not just item-level margin.

What Suppliers and Sellers Can Reasonably Take From This

Based on what Walmart has reported in recent earnings and what Sam’s Club has outlined publicly about its long-term strategy, a few grounded observations emerge:

• Sam’s Club is sustaining growth across both in-club performance and ecommerce, not trading one for the other.
• Member behavior is trending more digital, which can influence how products are discovered, evaluated, and repurchased.
• Clubs are playing a larger role in fulfillment, increasing the importance of in-stock reliability and operational readiness.
• Assortment competition is intensifying as private brand becomes a larger growth driver.

There is no need to overstate what this means. But it is fair to say Sam’s Club is becoming more strategically important inside Walmart’s growth plans, and that suppliers and sellers who treat the club as a secondary channel may find themselves reacting later than they would prefer.

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