While Sam\u2019s Club does not have a single store in New York City,\u00a0the wholesale retailer found the city to be the ideal place to promote its health and wellness offerings. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Sam\u2019s Club hosted its first-ever \u201cSam\u2019s Wellness Club,\u201d an exclusive event bringing together creators, media and merchants at a loft event space overlooking Midtown Manhattan. The space showed off products from areas of the Sam\u2019s Club assortment such as food, health and beauty, flower bouquets, and apparel \u2014\u00a0some of which attendees could take home with them \u2014 as well as interactive components such as massage chairs, ear cleaning and a group sculpt workout class.<\/p>\n
\u201cWellness has been a part of our strategy for a long time at Sam\u2019s; it\u2019s one of the top three things on our members\u2019 minds,\u201d Kaity Whitmire, who oversees the baby, health\/beauty and over-the-counter medicine categories at Sam\u2019s Club, told Modern Retail at the event. \u201cWhat this experience is really for is to demonstrate how it comes together as an ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event is an example of how Sam\u2019s Club is working to tell a story around all the different health and wellness offerings in its stores \u2014\u00a0that members may buy both fiber powder alongside grocery items, or fresh fruits and produce alongside blenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cool part about this experience and this immersion is this is really what the member would find in the club,\u201d Whitmire said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about really great items, really incredible values brought to you by industry experts from our merchandising team in a really curated and thoughtful way that supports the members\u2019 everyday wellness journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sam\u2019s Club also just partnered with Weight Watchers<\/a> on new membership benefits, including a program that provides medical support to GLP-1 users. Last year, Sam\u2019s Club said 96% of its Member\u2019s Mark private-label food and beverage products were now free of over 40 ingredients such as artificial colors and high-fructose corn syrup.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that our members are focused on healthier living, and this partnership helps us bring that to them in a more accessible and affordable way,\u201d Myron Frazier, chief merchandising officer of Sam\u2019s Club, told Modern Retail in an exclusive interview earlier this month. \u201cConsumer expectations around health and wellness are changing rapidly, and increasingly people want trusted and affordable solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitmire said that, while Sam\u2019s Club has been in the wellness space for a long time, it has become more intentional about highlighting wellness. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t just include health foods or medicines; it could also mean high-protein products, beauty items or fitness apparel,\u201d Whitmire said. The event showed off a wide range of products from an electronic face mask to smoothies and workout clothes. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is bringing thoughtful solutions across the entire box together in one place to give that visual and that inspiration to the member.\u201d<\/p>\n With the emergence of the creator economy and social media, Whitmire said Sam\u2019s Club has been spending time analyzing trends such as \u201cfibermaxxing\u201d<\/a> and high-protein<\/a>. Specifically, she said the team has looked into not just what is trending, but also why something is trending \u2014\u00a0like if people generally are looking for sleep support or help getting enough fiber. \u201cWhat the team does is they go back and look and [ask], \u2018Do we have things across the assortment today that meet that objective?’\u201d<\/p>\n Walmart, which owns Sam\u2019s Club, has previously held pop-up events in New York City as marketing activations, including a fashion pop-up<\/a> this spring with items from Free Assembly and Scoop, as well as stops by its themed \u201cWalmart Delivers\u201d trucks<\/a> in Brooklyn and Central Park last year.<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s Club decided to host the event in New York City because of its close proximity to health and fitness influencers. \u201cIt\u2019s the mecca of wellness,\u201d Whitmire said. Attendees included Matt James<\/a> of \u201cThe Bachelor,\u201d who is now a food and fitness influencer, as well as Austin-based fitness content creator and events host Jenna Palek<\/a>. Palek also led the workout class at the Sam\u2019s Club event. Whitmire said the creator community is important in helping members and consumers in general understand product trends and use cases.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are experiencing products differently now than they ever have before, and a large part of that is due to the creator community,\u201d Whitmire said. \u201cIt\u2019s no longer OK just to read a [product detail page] and understand a product; you really want to hear firsthand from someone how it works, you want to see how it works, you want to engage in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t