Shopping-season revamp

Earlier start to holiday promotions among changes at Sam’s Club.

Sam’s Club is making some changes this Christmas shopping season as the coronavirus pandemic drives a shift in members’ buying and entertaining plans.

Megan Crozier, chief marketing officer of Walmart Inc.’s members-only warehouse unit, and Tony Rogers, chief member officer, said in a media call Wednesday that a survey of Sam’s Club members showed 31% planned to begin their Christmas shopping earlier than usual this year. Also, 61% said they would do more of their shopping online.

“It’s a way to get some sense of normalcy back into

their lives,” Rogers said. “Covid-19 has really changed, in a lot of ways, how members shop and what they expect from us. We’re listening and evolving our approach to meet their needs.”

Noting that some people said in the survey that they already had started their Christmas shopping, Rogers said Sam’s Club has moved its holiday promotions up a month. Sam’s Club normally doesn’t begin offering its holiday deals until November, Rogers said.

Sam’s Club also is spreading its popular one-day sales events over a number of days to give more members a chance to shop as well as to help avoid crowds, Rogers said. For instance, its November “Savings Event” will run for nine days this year, Nov. 7-15.

And instead of the traditional Black Friday sales the day after Thanksgiving, Sam’s Club will observe “10 Days of Thanks-Savings” Nov. 20-29.

Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant and president of Spieckerman Retail, said retailers would be wise this year to encourage online shopping and space out in-store events. These measures will make social distancing easier, she said.

To help with the expected increase in online orders, Sam’s Club is hiring 2,000 permanent, full-time workers across the country, Crozier said. The new employees will beef up the supply chain by working in both its distribution and fulfillment centers.

Moreover, Crozier said, all fulfillment center workers will be paid an extra $2 an hour during the Christmas season.

Sam’s Club aims to help online shoppers by introducing a service it calls Ship from Club, which essentially turns clubs into fulfillment centers. Workers at more than 100 clubs will pick online orders from club inventory and ship them directly to members’ homes. About one-fifth of all online orders are expected to use this service, Crozier said.

This also will be the first Christmas season in which curbside pickup of orders placed online will be expanded to all 597 U.S. clubs, she said.

Other retailers also have bumped up their Christmas season promotions. Both Bentonville-based Walmart and rival Target Corp. plan mid-October sales that kick off the Christmas shopping season and compete with e-commerce giant Amazon. com’s Prime Days.

However, retailers face some strong head winds going into the season, including economic uncertainty and high unemployment. These likely will affect Christmas sales revenue, analysts say.

According to Coresight Research, 48% of shoppers say they’ll spend less this Christmas. That could have a significant effect on the retail industry, since more than 20% of total annual U.S. sales occur during the season, Coresight said in its U.S. Holiday Retail Report.