---
title: "Membership Giant Sam's Club: 'Card, Not Person' for Member Benefits"
description: "In an era dominated by e-commerce, from KA supermarkets to small retail shops, all lament the internet's interception of traffic, yet one offline store actively turns away a large wave of traffic. Recently, a blogger's video of a work experience at Sam's Club has been trending, showing disputes with non-members who don't understand the 'membership required to shop' policy. Netizens are divided on whether Sam's strict card checks better protect member interests or are overly harsh and impersonal."
author: "鲸落"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2020-12-18"
language: "en"
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# Membership Giant Sam's Club: 'Card, Not Person' for Member Benefits

> In an era dominated by e-commerce, from KA supermarkets to small retail shops, all lament the internet's interception of traffic, yet one offline store actively turns away a large wave of traffic. Recently, a blogger's video of a work experience at Sam's Club has been trending, showing disputes with non-members who don't understand the 'membership required to shop' policy. Netizens are divided on whether Sam's strict card checks better protect member interests or are overly harsh and impersonal.

**In this e-commerce-dominated era, from KA supermarkets to small retail shops, all are decrying the internet's interception of traffic, but there is one store that also does offline business yet actively turns away a large wave of traffic!**
Recently, a blogger's video of a work experience at Sam's Club has been gaining traction online. The video records the blogger's experience as a card checker and a fast packer, encountering multiple non-members who didn't understand the 'membership required to shop' policy, leading to arguments. Netizens are also voicing their opinions: does Sam's strict card checking better protect members' interests, or is it too strict and impersonal?
Before delving into this topic, let's introduce the membership system. It's a consumption model where consumers first pay to obtain membership, then enjoy a series of services. In fact, this is not a new model; over 20 years ago, Sam's brought the membership system to China.
Compared to the US, the membership model is almost household knowledge, especially for globally operating chain brands like Sam's, which enjoy high acceptance and recognition.
After more than 20 years of development, Sam's Club in China has over 3 million members, accounting for the vast majority of members in the domestic membership-based supermarket sector. However, **compared to China's 1.4 billion population, there is still great potential for the development of membership systems in the future Chinese market.**
This makes it easy to understand why discussions like 'Why should I pay for a card first, then pay to shop? Aren't you doing business with non-members?' have become hot topics.
**-01-**
**What is Sam's Club up to with card checks?**
**Why does Sam's Club reject traffic to implement card checks?**
For example, when flying or taking high-speed rail, you'll notice that even if first class or business class seats are empty, they are not opened to others when other areas are crowded.
Why? Because users who purchase such tickets are not just paying for the trip, but also for saving time, for a more superior spatial experience, and for prioritized service.
Behind Sam's Club's card checks is the protection of member rights. The membership card is a special ID, a threshold; the existence of a threshold means some are inside and some are outside.
On the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail, second-class seats cost over 500 yuan, while business class costs over 1,700 yuan. If you got business-class service for 500 yuan, what would other business-class passengers think?!
Looking back, Sam's Club's card checks provide the most basic protection of member rights.
Secondly, after ensuring the basic 'have or have not' issue, Sam's transitions to the 'good or bad' level.
Some netizens joke that if you don't eat your fill for free at Sam's Club, you've wasted your visit, because Sam's has many free samples. But if a large number of non-members flood in, doesn't that mean some paying members might not get to sample?
Another example: hot items like 1499 Moutai are always in short supply. If many non-members come in to snap them up, they naturally take away slots that belong to members.
So, Sam's Club's card checks are about maintaining the member service experience.
Finally, imagine taking your wife and kids on the weekend to enjoy a pleasant shopping time, only to find a crowd fighting over discounted eggs and another over rice. Isn't that annoying? Seeing this, would you renew your membership?
So, Sam's Club's card checks are also a guarantee for its own future.
For membership-based Sam's, members are the foundation. Behind the card checks, it's about making members feel they're getting great value and that shopping at Sam's is a pleasure.
**-02-**
**Why don't other membership systems check cards?**
Strictly speaking, Sam's is not the only membership-based supermarket. Not to mention some early pioneers that failed, there are many current practitioners. **But why don't other membership supermarkets make a big deal about checking cards? Only Sam's does this. Don't other companies want to protect member rights? Don't they care about their future?**
The answer is that 'where you sit determines what you see.' Companies have different attributes, positions, and focuses.
The conventional membership logic is to lower gross margins on products to attract consumers to sign up. This model focuses on volume, gaining greater bargaining power upstream, and scaling up. Once a certain scale is reached, they seek profit models. This is a funnel from a big circle to a small one.
Simply put, conventional membership systems focus on 'volume'; the more people, the greater the volume, the higher the bargaining power with upstream suppliers, and ultimately the lower the 'price'.
This is why other membership companies don't make a big deal about checking cards: non-members also contribute to volume, so they turn a blind eye. But in reality, members gained through low prices have no loyalty, and low-priced products struggle to retain customers. If they're just here for the deals, there won't be repeat purchases.
Sam's is different!
The most important point is that it doesn't attract members with low prices.
Sam's focuses on quality. For example, its Australian grain-fed beef: from the start of raising cattle, they set feeding methods, measure feed, use cold-chain logistics throughout transport, and maintain strict temperature standards of -2 to 2 degrees Celsius. This alone is something other supermarkets find hard to achieve. Once at the store, there are temperature-controlled storage and processing rooms. All these investments are just to ensure members can buy top-quality beef.
Even for seemingly ordinary bananas, Sam's secures the first batch purchase rights for Dole's super sweet bananas from the Philippines. Simply put, Dole's super sweet bananas are only available to others after Sam's selects the first batch. And that's not all; before they hit the shelves, Sam's compares each banana against color charts; if the color or size is off, they don't go on the shelf. Sam's even cuts off the smaller, curved sides of a banana bunch, keeping only the straightest middle part.
On platforms like Weibo, Zhihu, and Xiaohongshu, many netizens share how they became Sam's members: after tasting a friend's bananas, beef rolls, or Swiss rolls, which exceeded expectations, they went to Sam's with a friend and were directly won over. Data shows that 80% of Sam's members come from referrals by friends and family.
This shows that Sam's most important strategy is not volume, but consumers' genuine recognition of Sam's philosophy, building reputation through quality, and expanding through word-of-mouth. This is a ripple from a small circle to a big one.
**-03-**
**Behind the card checks: where is the membership-based business model headed?**
Returning to the initial card-check incident, although it may lose some business in the short term, this kind of 'traffic' is not long-term, stable, or sustainable.
As the leader in membership systems, Sam's has established a consumer membership model truly adapted to the Chinese market. With quality as the core focus, it's destined not to obsess over short-term traffic but to value long-term value. 'Membership status' is not just a customer-attraction tool, but a qualification for accessing scarce resources and quality products.
In an environment where traditional retail supermarkets are declining, many giants are turning their attention to the membership-based business model, but whether it can last and become the pearl of future retail remains to be seen. **Regardless, Sam's has broken away from traditional membership systems and carved a path few have taken. This courage and attitude are commendable, and these are traits an industry leader should possess.**
Once the tip is adopted, a payment of 400-2000 yuan will be made.


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