This Day, That Year

Since China’s first Sam’s Club opened in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in August 1996, more than 10 other stores have opened across the country.

Sam’s Club is the membership store and high-end format of one of the world’s largest retailers by revenue, Walmart In.

The item from July 17, 2003,

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.

in China Daily showed people waiting for the opening of the first Sam’s Club in Beijing.

Amid the fast development and popularity of e-commerce, traditional brick-andmortar retailers have been gearing up to secure their market shares in their competition with online giants.

In 2016, Sam’s Club went online with e-commerce

The newspaper and beyond

giant JD and the digital services have seen triple-digit annual growth.

Overall, Walmart China has seen its orders surge more than 30 times after working with JD. The collaboration covers 146 stores in 20 cities.

This year, Sam’s Club announced plans to set up storehouses with JD Daojia, a food-delivery unit of JD, at places where their physical stores have not yet reached.

The system will be built jointly by Sam’s Club and JD, including selecting locations for the storehouses and managing the inventory and deliveries.

Besides Walmart, leading French retailer Carrefour

SA is also planning to expand its digital and online reach to 18 cities across China from the current 12.

Carrefour has built its own shopping app and its stores have worked with online-tooffline delivery platforms including Ele.com and Baidu Waimai.

Meanwhile, in Beijing and Shanghai, Carrefour has started to sell fresh goods directly from overseas, with a special focus on lobsters and oysters.