---
title: "Benchmarking Against Sam's Club Member's Mark: China's Private Label Lags by at Least 9 Years"
description: "After systematically reviewing the development histories of Sam's Club's Member's Mark and Costco's Kirkland Signature, I believe most Chinese retailers' private label efforts are still at the stage Sam's Club was in around 2017—brand consolidation and quality standard definition. Member's Mark has evolved over 28 years, with its true rise occurring in the last decade, offering valuable lessons for Chinese retailers."
author: "袁来"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2026-04-19"
categories: "Brand Marketing, Retail Formats"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/benchmarking-against-sam-s-club-member-s-mark-china-s-private-label-lags-6a795f5b/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/benchmarking-against-sam-s-club-member-s-mark-china-s-private-label-lags-6a795f5b.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PDWLR--UPYc3j93sUBkkNw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%AF%B9%E6%A0%87%E5%B1%B1%E5%A7%86member-s-mark-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%87%AA%E6%9C%89%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C%E8%87%B3%E5%B0%91%E8%90%BD%E5%90%8E9%E5%B9%B4-6a795f5b.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/benchmarking-against-sam-s-club-member-s-mark-china-s-private-label-lags-6a795f5b/"
citation: "袁来. “Benchmarking Against Sam's Club Member's Mark: China's Private Label Lags by at Least 9 Years.” New Distribution, 2026-04-19. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/benchmarking-against-sam-s-club-member-s-mark-china-s-private-label-lags-6a795f5b/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Benchmarking Against Sam's Club Member's Mark: China's Private Label Lags by at Least 9 Years

> After systematically reviewing the development histories of Sam's Club's Member's Mark and Costco's Kirkland Signature, I believe most Chinese retailers' private label efforts are still at the stage Sam's Club was in around 2017—brand consolidation and quality standard definition. Member's Mark has evolved over 28 years, with its true rise occurring in the last decade, offering valuable lessons for Chinese retailers.

见字如面,我是袁来。
Recently, while preparing for the June "Private Label Industry Chain Conference," I systematically reviewed the development histories of two international benchmarks: Sam's Club's Member's Mark and Costco's Kirkland Signature.
After this review, benchmarking against the current state of domestic retailers' private label efforts, I have an insight:
Today, most Chinese retailers doing private label are still at the stage Sam's Club's Member's Mark was around 2017: the stage of brand consolidation and quality standard definition.
Member's Mark has come to 2026, which is exactly 9 years forward.
In this article, I will expand on this, using Sam's Club's Member's Mark as a reference to help the industry understand the current development stage.
**Using Member's Mark as a Mirror**
When it comes to private label, the most discussed benchmarks are Pangdonglai and Sam's Club. But seeing their current state, I think it's just the surface, or just seeing the success of others.
The best way to learn is not to learn from the successful results, but to learn from others' paths.
Especially Sam's Club's Member's Mark—a brand born in 1998 and evolving to today, 28 years—there must be some aspects that can inspire and guide us.
I pulled out public materials and compared them; two details are worth noting.
The first detail: Member's Mark was not born from strategic planning but from a desperate counterattack.
According to the "Sam's Club Company History" included in FundingUniverse, in the early 1990s, Sam's Club contributed over 20% of Walmart's overall sales, but by 1997, this figure had dropped to 17.5%. Competitor Costco had already launched Kirkland Signature in 1995 and was growing faster year by year, so Sam's had to act.
In 1998, Sam's Club launched a large-scale renovation: refurbished 70 stores, added new departments like bakery to 50 stores, expanded fresh food areas in 120 stores, and launched a new "Millennium Club" format. That year, Member's Mark was officially launched as a new private label food line.
**This is a brand pushed out when performance was cornered.**
The second detail: Member's Mark truly rose not in the first 18 years, but in the last 10 years.
According to official Walmart reports, from 1998 to 2016, for 18 full years, Member's Mark was just one of many private labels at Sam's Club.
Categories were scattered, brands were scattered, and consumers couldn't recognize them.
The real turning point was in 2017, when Sam's Club, led by Chief Private Label Vice President Chandra Holt, consolidated more than 20 scattered private labels under the single name Member's Mark. That same year, they launched 300 new SKUs at once, aiming to increase MM's share from 20% to 25%. (Source: Talk Business & Politics, April 2017 report)
Then, from 2020 to 2022, Sam's Club renovated, restructured, and reformulated over 1,200 Member's Mark items, and in 2022, relaunched the brand with "Made with Our Member and Planet in Mind."
Today, Member's Mark contributes about 50% of Sam's Club's sales growth in the last two years. (Source: Sam's Club 2025 Investment Community Meeting disclosure)
Putting these two details together, we can see: **A private label that can succeed typically follows a rhythm of "forced start," then long-term suppression and accumulation, then short-term concentrated explosion.**
I made a timeline to clarify the key development nodes of Sam's Club's private label.
Yonghui's 2024 revenue was 67.574 billion yuan, down 14.07% year-on-year, with a net loss of 1.465 billion yuan. RT-Mart's parent company, Gaoxin Retail, issued a warning on October 20, 2025, expecting a half-year loss of 110 million to 140 million yuan for fiscal year 2026.
Under such performance pressure, on October 13, 2025, Yonghui held the industry's first private label launch event, officially announcing that its "Quality Yonghui" series "strictly follows the standard development process of Pangdonglai's DL series private label," and set goals of "creating 100 billion-yuan-level big products in 3 years and launching 500 private label products in 5 years."
Following that, RT-Mart, on the occasion of its 28th anniversary, launched a "Private Label Festival," introducing a dual-brand matrix of "Super Save + Runfa Select," with nearly 500 SKUs rolled out at once.
Frankly speaking, **the underlying logic is highly similar to Sam's Club in 1998: it's not about building a brand with the trend, but being forced to start private label upgrades under performance pressure.**
**Classification of Local Retail Private Labels**
Using Member's Mark as a yardstick, I think local retailers' private label players can be roughly divided into three categories.
**Category 1: Stuck in the "Pre-MM 18 Years"**
The common characteristics of this type: they have private labels, but no brand architecture. They have SKUs, but no consumer mindshare.
The names are basically "XX Select" or "XX Preferred." Consumers standing in front of the section can't tell which is theirs and which is someone else's.
Recently, I visited a regional supermarket with over 200 private label SKUs under three different names, all placed in the same section.
I asked the store manager what the difference was between the three brands. The manager replied: there's essentially no difference; they're just brands signed by different buyers at different times.
This is a typical "pre-MM 18 years" state.
Member's Mark, from 1998 to 2016, was actually the same. Over a dozen private label names conflicted with each other, with no brand asset accumulation.
I believe this type is the majority at present.
**Category 2: Just Arrived at the "MM 2017 Consolidation Period"**
What this type is doing is essentially what Member's Mark did in 2017: moving from "chaos" to "order." I see two approaches among local players.
The first is cutting.
A typical example: Zhongshang Supermarket in 2025 cut its private label SKUs from nearly 2,000 to fewer than 200. This is "surgery," and every SKU cut represents sunk costs.
The second is dividing.
A typical example: RT-Mart's "Super Save + Runfa Select" dual-brand matrix, which puts the originally scattered private labels into a clear brand architecture. The Super Save series covers 45 categories with about 300 SKUs, focusing on extreme cost-effectiveness. Runfa Select has 30+ categories with 200+ SKUs, focusing on health, geographical indications, and authoritative certifications.
Also, Yonghui's three-tier structure of "Big Brand Premium + Yonghui Customization + Quality Yonghui." First-tier brands, joint customization, and private labels each have their role.
What Zhongshang Supermarket, RT-Mart, and Yonghui are doing is equivalent to the integration led by **Chandra Holt** at Member's Mark in 2017. The fast ones are running in 2017, the slow ones in 2018. The real hard work, frankly, hasn't been reached yet.
**Category 3: Approaching the "MM Quality Remaking Period to Growth Engine Period"**
This category has two completely different paths: one is the long-termism of regional supermarkets, the other is the native genes of new retail.
First, the representative of long-termism—Pangdonglai.
Pangdonglai's DL brand sales data: private label sales were 75 million yuan in 2022, 250 million yuan in 2023, and exceeded 2 billion yuan in 2024, including 1.47 billion yuan in self-sales and 600 million yuan in external output. It's expected to reach 6 billion yuan in 2025 and potentially exceed 10 billion yuan in 2026.
Pangdonglai founder Yu Donglai has publicly disclosed a set of data: Pangdonglai's procurement structure is 4:3:3. That is, 40% direct sourcing from manufacturers, 30% private label, and 30% from suppliers.
Whether Pangdonglai has fully experienced an MM-style "quality remaking period" is unknown.
But from the three dimensions of brand momentum, single-product polishing depth, and consumer mindshare, it has crossed the threshold of "product capability" and started to make DL a true growth engine for Pangdonglai.
Next, the representative of new retail—Hema.
In 2025, Hema's annual revenue exceeded 75 billion yuan, up 40% year-on-year, with adjusted EBITDA turning profitable for the first time. According to the "2026 China Private Label Core Trends and Action Guide," Hema's private label sales share is about 30%, roughly the same level as Sam's Club and Pangdonglai.
An important distinction here: among Hema's two major businesses, Hema Fresh's private label share is around 30%, while Super Hema (NB) has a private label share of over 60%.
Hema's path is quite different from Pangdonglai's. Pangdonglai uses "20 years of slow grinding," while Hema is "new retail native, born with a private label orientation," skipping the "pre-MM 18 years of multi-brand dispersion" stage.
If we force Hema into the MM framework, it doesn't fully match. But from the results, Hema's private label has become its core weapon to move from a "new retail story" to a "retail growth engine."
**Another Path**
**Not on Member's Mark's Timeline**
At this point, I must add something.
In the exploration of private labels, there are not only mainstream supermarket systems, but also many "small and beautiful" retail newcomers. Typical examples: Tao Xiaopang and Xianfeng Life.
According to industry public reports, Tao Xiaopang's private label SKUs have exceeded 500, accounting for about 20% of supermarket sales. By the end of 2025, it had already output private label products to supermarket enterprises.
Xianfeng Life has 10 stores, with industry insiders revealing that self-operated products account for about 40%. Its "Super Value" series directly benchmarks against ALDI China—9.9 yuan for washing and care products, 6.9 yuan for craft white beer, 14.9 yuan for 1L fresh milk, with hit products emerging one after another.
If we put these two into the previous MM framework, we'll find an interesting phenomenon—they are not on Member's Mark's timeline at all.
Member's Mark took a path of "large scale, long cycle": born in 1998, integrated in 2017, and reworked existing stock in 2020. The foundation of this path is "big and comprehensive," and every step needs to be handled.
But Tao Xiaopang and Xianfeng Life have not followed this logic from day one.
From day one, they are small and refined, with a limited total number of SKUs, a slow pace of new product launches, and each product is polished to high standards from the start. For example, Xianfeng Life's private label categories average only 1.83 items per category, while Tao Xiaopang averages 2.7 items per category.
This is another path, directly entering "single-product polishing and quality deep cultivation." I think this path also has great reference value for regional supermarkets with annual revenues ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion yuan.
Of course, the "small and beautiful" path is not easier than the "big and comprehensive" one. My understanding: for mainstream regional supermarket systems, the difficulty in private label lies in organizational positioning and decision-making courage.
Looking back, the development of China's private label is not a privilege of leading retail enterprises; you don't have to become Yonghui or RT-Mart first to be qualified to talk about private label.
If you are willing to slow down, stabilize, and go deeper, you can still make a good private label that becomes the core growth engine of your own business.
**Final Thoughts**
At this point, I want to say that Member's Mark as a yardstick is not used to measure who runs fast or slow. Its true value is to help you see your position clearly and then make choices that match it.
Private label has never been an easy task.
It requires strategic determination, organizational resilience, supply chain depth, and even more patience and time. For today's Chinese retailers, starting early or late, scale big or small, as long as the direction is right and the pace is steady, every serious player has the opportunity to run out their own Member's Mark.
It is based on this that **on June 4-5, New Distribution will jointly hold the 2026 China Private Label Industry Chain Conference in Hangzhou with the Private Label Industry-Research Collaboration Platform.**
If you care about the development of private labels, I think you should come to the scene, listen, look, and talk.


---

## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 袁来
- Published: 2026-04-19
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/benchmarking-against-sam-s-club-member-s-mark-china-s-private-label-lags-6a795f5b/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PDWLR--UPYc3j93sUBkkNw

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671