Sam’s Club Raised Membership Prices In May. Young Members Bought The Expensive Tier.

Sam’s Club U.S. comp sales grew 4.4% excluding fuel in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, according to Walmart’s earnings presentation, on transactions up 7.0% and average ticket down 2.5%, both excluding fuel. Net sales reached $25.7 billion, up 8.8% including fuel and 4.5% without it. E-commerce grew 26% and now represents approximately 20% of net sales excluding fuel, up roughly 350 basis points, with club-fulfilled delivery generating triple-digit growth. Sam’s Club can reach 65% of U.S. households in under three hours, and more than 25% of fast delivery orders arrive in under an hour.

Walmart attributed membership income growth to increased member counts and Plus members. Gen Z and Millennials drove more than half of new sign-ups, and Plus mix exceeded 50% within that cohort. Sam’s Club raised its annual membership fees effective May 1, from $50 to $60 for Club and from $110 to $120 for Plus, as CNBC reported in April. It was the first increase since October 2022, and the quarter Walmart just reported covers May through July.

Young members chose the premium tier in the quarter prices went up

Walmart did not connect those two facts, and neither will this article. What the presentation establishes is that member counts grew, that the growth skewed young, and that the young cohort opted into the more expensive tier at above-half rates, across the first quarter the higher prices were in effect. Sam’s cited assortment, expanded hours and improved curbside pickup and delivery when it announced the change, and raised the Plus rewards cap from $500 to $750. Both tiers still price below Costco, which charges $65 and $130.

For suppliers, the composition matters more than the count. A member base whose new additions skew young and toward the premium tier is a different buyer than the stock-up household the club format was built around. Brand teams whose Sam’s plans assume a suburban family filling a cart every three weeks should pressure-test that assumption against the buyer Sam’s is actually adding. Whether counts hold as more of the existing base cycles through renewal at the higher rate is the figure to watch when Walmart next reports.

Walmart says units grew in the same quarter the ticket fell

The intuitive read of 7% more trips against a 2.5% smaller ticket is that members are visiting more often and buying less each time. Walmart’s own presentation complicates that. It states comp sales were driven by increased transactions and unit volumes, which means units grew rather than shrank. Whatever is pulling the ticket down, it is not members putting fewer things in the cart.

Price and mix are the remaining explanations, and Walmart discloses one deflationary factor. Health and wellness comped down low single digits with roughly 600 basis points of negative impact from Maximum Fair Pricing. That is a category figure, and Walmart has not said how much of the segment ticket it accounts for. Nor does it explain the longer pattern, since spending per trip at Sam’s Club has now declined for four consecutive quarters, beginning before those price caps took effect.

The practical read for suppliers is that the ticket decline is real and sustained, and that unit volumes are not the cause. Rebuilding pack architecture around a basket contraction the company has not reported would be an expensive response to a number Walmart has partly explained and partly not.

Category performance fills in some of the mix picture. Technology, office and entertainment posted low double-digit comps. Fresh, grocery and beverage, and consumables each grew mid single digits. Health and wellness declined low single digits on the pharmacy deflation noted above.

A merchant runs Sam’s Club now, and she is on record wanting fewer items

Latriece Watkins took over as president and CEO of Sam’s Club this year, arriving from the executive vice president and chief merchandising officer seat at Walmart U.S. Chris Nicholas, her predecessor, now leads Walmart International.

Fortune reported in May that Watkins is pursuing fewer choices and sharper curation as her answer to Costco, opening its profile with her standing in a Secaucus club photographing a wall of fruit cups and asking Sam’s Club’s chief merchant how many varieties one club needs to sell. Sam’s Club operates more than 600 clubs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Suppliers should read that posture as item-count pressure heading into planning conversations, particularly in categories where a brand holds multiple facings of similar items.

Member’s Mark grew mid single digits in the quarter. In January, Sam’s Club announced that its Member’s Mark food and beverage products, excluding sports nutrition and over-the-counter items, had reached its Made Without standards, removing more than 40 ingredients including certified synthetic colors, artificial flavors, aspartame and high-fructose corn syrup. The company said it did so without compromising taste or value. The company said it aims to extend those standards into cosmetics, health and wellness, and laundry beginning in 2026.

Suppliers will get better tools for the assortment argument. On August 20, the same day it reported earnings, Walmart announced plans to bring Scintilla, its first-party commerce intelligence platform, to Sam’s Club in 2027. Myron Frazier, chief merchant at Sam’s Club, said the platform will help merchants and suppliers act faster and give a clearer view of what matters to members so Sam’s can bring them the right items.

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