Today, my wife and I took Sam's Club for a spin. We've been loyal Costco customers even since we've moved to a town that forces us to drive about 35 minutes to get there. However, we found a Sam's Club that is considerably closer so we thought we'd see what's what. Here is how I scored the day starting with the front door.
1. The Approach: Walking up to Sam's Club today it looked somewhat like the entry to a Costco, sans the neat and organized cart system that Costco maintains. The carts were scattered and seemed tattered and old. The person at the front door was not friendly and seemed to ignore me when I asked where the membership desk was. Off to a good start. I approached the membership desk that seemed disheveled and chaotic because it was co-mingled with the returns desk. Signing up was quick and painless other than the woman spelling my name wrong on my card. Not sure how that happened as she was staring at my license as she entered it. Small detail, but Morobella annoys me. Once we wrangled a cart it was off to the races.
2. First Impressions: I started to feel that this felt like a Wal-Mart except it cost me $40 bucks to get in and the mayonnaise jars could eat you. The store had similar sight-lines to Costco but didn't have the racetrack format of a Costco with the infield merchandise. It was hard to get my bearings as the aisles seemed to have no rhyme or reason. I'm sure I missed merchandise as I shopped. The entry had awesome pies and cakes which tempted my daughter and were very reasonably priced, so far so good. The same Vizio flat screens greeted us as they do at Costco along with the iPod's, hp printers and more electronics. Then, we were intercepted by a DirecTV sales man who tried to convince me that saving 7 bucks a month was worth me ripping out all my Comcast equipment, having my credit checked and putting a large dish on the side of my vintage house. I shook him off and kept moving. For a Saturday afternoon, it didn't seem as hectic as a Costco. Is that a good or a bad sign. Let's find out.
3. Merchandise: One of the things I like about Costco is that they have luxury and semi-luxury brands interwoven with the values. Also, even their clothes are quality as you can sometimes find Lucky jeans or Calvin Klein shirts. At Sam's Club, it felt like someone took a truck from the Wal-Mart next door, loaded it up with clothes and brought them over to Sam's. Another part of Costco I love, is the books. The book section at Sam's was brutal. I mean, don't they study Costco and see how their merchants build that area? Why wouldn't they at least hold ground with them? There were about 25 types of bibles and a whole section of Spanish language books, but very little in the way of current best-sellers. Bummer. Food: We usually buy all of our bulk items like diapers, cereal, snacks, Vitamin Water etc at Costco and Sam's Club did okay in that area. But in places like the take and bake pizza, the portions were smaller and not as rich as the Costco pizza. The bread and frozen seafood were nice selections. Part of what we were looking for today were toys for Xmas. Their selection did not rival that of Costco which, is surprising since Wal-Mart could buy in larger quantities and parse toys over to Sam's. There is more to write about the merchandise, but it felt more like a Wal-Mart than the treasure-hunt that is Costco.
4. The Service: A bummer all around. Starting with the unfriendly greeter at the front door to the DirecTV guy through to the people at the checkouts not helping us like they do at Costco all the way to the rude guys at the hot dog counter the service experience was consistently bad. The employees did not have the same professionalism as they do at Costco (all relative) and they did not seem as happy with their jobs.
5. The Hot Dogs: We can't go to Costco without having a hot dog after we checkout. We love the $1.50 hot dog combo you can get at both Costco and Sam's. We think the edge goes to Sam's because they hot dogs are Nathan's from New York. Yummy. However, the condiment station had gnats and flys all over it and was disgusting. I was not happy about that.
The verdict is that we will continue to drive to Costco but when we need to make a quick run for a cereal box big enough for a small family to live in or my baby needs diapers, we will shoot down to Sam's for a visit. We intend to use Sam's as a big-box convenience store, but will not give up the red & white carts at Costco.
Some suggestions for Sam's Club would be to downplay the Wal-Mart feel. Maybe replace the blue smocks with orange ones or go even something more unique. Try to at least beat Costco at some key categories and steal some share from Costco by beating them in key areas. Also, creating some targeted experiences or store-within-store that immerses the consumer into an experience would beat Costco. Like a Wii experience or a Magnolia-type home theater environment. Sam's certainly has the resources to make it happen. Oh and, hire some people that are happy to be there. It is well documented that Costco pays well ($17.25 an hour on average) and pays 90% of benefits. It really shows and plays as part of the experience when the people working there seem like they want to be there.
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