Sam’s Club unveils consumer engagement, feedback community to co-create products with members
Sam’s Club is unveiling a new, consumer-driven process to retail that engages with members to shape and contribute to Member’s Mark, the private brand offered exclusively at Sam’s Club.
"This Member’s Mark Community emerged from stealth at unprecedented scale with 50,000 actively participating consumers," the retailer said.
Through the Member’s Mark Community, an opt-in network, Sam’s Club has unveiled a new level of personalization and participation in the retail industry, designed to enhance the member experience. With this level of dynamic consumer engagement, members play a pivotal role by providing valuable input on products before they reach clubs—from voting on exclusive flavors to rigorously testing and trialing new items. The continuous flow of feedback serves as the cornerstone for guiding the large-scale development of products, ensuring that offerings consistently align with members' evolving needs and preferences.
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“At Sam’s Club, we have a long history of listening to feedback from our members and putting their needs at the center of everything we do. It’s an integral part of how we develop our Member’s Mark products, and in today’s ‘experience economy,’ our approach sets us apart from other retailers in ways that deliver real value to our members,” said Megan Crozier, chief merchant for Sam’s Club. “Our approach goes beyond traditional focus groups and surveys, with true engagement that will shape the future of retail by creating more personalized experiences for our members. And this collaboration is already happening at scale, with input flowing from 50,000 active members, and we see the opportunity to include all members in the future.”
This season’s Member’s Mark grill offering illustrates the community in action. The product development team identified avid grillers through a questionnaire verifying a wealth of experience and a genuine passion for grilling; they then distributed 20 prototypes to members in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area. Members tested the grills—cooking, filming and reviewing their experiences. Their feedback led to the development of a grill that included adjusted features to ensure it was tailor-made to resonate with members' needs and preferences.
“The future of customer engagement is participatory as retailers and customers collaborate in commerce to create win-win experiences,” said R “Ray” Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, a Silicon Valley based research and advisory firm. “Sam’s Club is pushing the boundaries of retail in today’s experience economy with customer engagement strategies designed to get to the promises of collaborative commerce.”
Currently, the community primarily seeks feedback from members who mirror the broader Sam's Club membership base. The next phase will offer all Sam's Club members the opportunity to become collaborators and partners with the brand.
[Read more: Sam’s Club elevates in-store shopping experience for customers, associates]