E-commerce / RetailChina
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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Sam's Club China's 30-Year Journey: From Retreats in Kunming and Changchun to a 100-Billion-Yuan Membership Retail Comeback
Founded: Sam Walton (Founder of Sam's Club), Zhu Xiaojing (CEO of Walmart China), Liu Peng (President of Sam's Club China) · Walmart (China) Investment Co., Ltd. · Sam's Club
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryE-commerce / Retail
RegionChina
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
Sam Walton founded Sam's Club in the U.S. in 1983, using a model of annual membership fees in exchange for low-margin, bulk-packaged goods to serve small business owners. In 1996, Walmart entered China alongside Sam's Club, opening its first store in Shenzhen, aiming to replicate the American warehouse membership model for emerging Chinese urban families. However, at the time, China had few private cars, limited living space, and weak household storage capacity. The bulk-buying logic was ill-suited to the local market, forcing Sam's Club to endure nearly two decades of losses and contraction while waiting for the rise of the middle class and the maturation of instant retail infrastructure before restarting expansion.
Milestones
1996
Entry into China Turning Point
Sam's Club opened its first store in Shenzhen in 1996, which was also the first in Asia, adopting the same paid membership and bulk warehouse model as in the U.S. However, due to low household income, small refrigerator capacities, and a lack of bulk-buying habits, foot traffic and renewal rates remained low for a long time. The inability to replicate the store model early on set the stage for later closures.
2002
Expansion Failure and Contraction Failure
Between 2002 and 2004, Sam's Club stores in Kunming and Changchun were converted into Walmart Supercenters due to poor performance. A planned store in Beijing was also shelved due to insufficient traffic projections. The membership model, once highly anticipated, proved incompatible with the Chinese market, leading Walmart to strategically sideline the format. The number of stores nationwide remained in the single digits for nearly a decade.
2012
Restarting Expansion Turning Point
In 2012, as urban middle-class car ownership and living conditions improved, Sam's Club resumed its expansion. By around 2016, the store count grew to over a dozen, and the company began refining signature private-label products like Swiss rolls, rotisserie chickens, and durian mille-feuille cakes. Management realized Chinese consumers prioritize quality and scarcity over mere low prices, shifting the product strategy from copying U.S. bestsellers to localized, exclusive development—a logic that fueled later growth.
2016
E-commerce and Front-end Warehouse Breakthrough PMF
In 2016, Walmart strategically invested in JD.com and took over Yihaodian. Sam's Club launched its App and one-hour delivery service, utilizing dense cloud warehouse networks around stores to deliver bulk items like Swiss rolls to families in smaller apartments. Paid membership jumped from the millions to several millions, and the share of e-commerce sales continued to rise, validating the feasibility of the online membership model in China. This phase lasted from 2016 to 2020.
2021
Membership and Revenue Surge Growth
During the pandemic, the combination of stockpiling demand and middle-class consumption stratification accelerated Sam's Club's expansion to over 40 stores. Paid memberships exceeded 5 million, with renewal rates consistently above 80%. Meanwhile, local imitators like Hema X Member Store and Carrefour Membership Store closed many locations. Sam's Club captured the middle-class customer base left behind by competitors, and a 'daigou' (reseller) industry flourished during this period. This phase lasted from 2021 to 2023.
2024
100-Billion-Yuan Milestone and Leadership Change Growth
Sam's Club China's sales reached 100.5 billion yuan in 2024 and grew to approximately 140 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of nearly 40%. Paid memberships exceeded 10.7 million with a 92% renewal rate, and 10 new stores were opened in 2025, a record high. In 2025, Walmart China appointed Liu Peng, former Alibaba VP, as the first Chinese president of the Sam's Club format. The retail profit has surpassed that of the hypermarket format, making it the group's cash cow. This phase lasted from 2024 to 2025.
2026
Quality Control Controversies and Growth Targets Turning Point
By early 2026, Sam's Club China surpassed 60 stores, reaching 67 by May. However, within a year of the leadership change, quality control issues led to regulatory scrutiny. Coupled with the pressure of a 15% comparable store growth target for 2026, concerns grew that excessive localization was diluting the brand's premium foreign image. Sam's Club faces its first direct conflict between rapid scaling and quality trust, making organizational governance a new priority.
Turning Points
- 1996: Importing the American membership model directly to China, leading to two decades of dormancy until the rise of the middle class.
- 2002-2004: Converting Kunming and Changchun stores into Walmart Supercenters, nearly abandoning the membership experiment.
- 2016: Leveraging the JD.com partnership to launch one-hour delivery and cloud warehouses, transforming bulk retail into a home-delivery model.
- The viral success of private-label products like rotisserie chicken and Swiss rolls on social media turned membership cards into a middle-class status symbol.
- 2025: Appointing Liu Peng as the first Chinese president, shifting toward full localization while triggering quality control controversies.
Failures & Pitfalls
- 2002-2004: Kunming and Changchun stores were converted back to Walmart Supercenters due to poor traffic, nearly wiping out early expansion efforts.
- For the first 20 years in China, the store count remained in the single digits, and the membership model was considered a failed case study.
- 2025-2026: Rapid expansion led to frequent quality control issues and regulatory scrutiny, damaging the brand's quality reputation.
- Localized and 'influencer-style' product selections were criticized by long-term members for diluting the original global product advantage, sparking discussions about membership cancellations.
- The proliferation of 'daigou' resellers led to popular items being cleared out and resold at a markup, harming the experience for regular members and increasing governance costs.
关键成功要素
- Patience in waiting for market maturity: Enduring twenty years of losses to capture middle-class purchasing power and wait for instant retail infrastructure.
- Private-label 'Member's Mark': Using massive procurement to lower costs and exclusive development to create differentiation, making the membership card indispensable.
- Front-end warehouses and rapid delivery: Solving the core pain point of Chinese families unable to store bulk goods, with online sales becoming a second growth curve.
- Low-margin 'traffic drivers': Using 68-yuan rotisserie chickens and Swiss rolls to generate social media buzz, then recouping profits through membership fees and high-margin items.
- Capitalizing on competitor exits: Rapidly absorbing the middle-class customer base as rivals closed stores, achieving a scale monopoly in the membership retail sector.
Lessons
- A correct model does not guarantee correct timing; formats ahead of consumer infrastructure must learn to survive while waiting.
- The essence of membership is using fees to filter high-value customers, then using differentiated products to justify the cost.
- Online retail for offline stores is not just about opening an online shop, but redefining how goods reach the home using warehouse and distribution networks.
- Quality control is the easiest thing to sacrifice during rapid expansion, yet it is the only basis upon which paid members vote with their feet.
- Viral products bring traffic but also lead to reseller arbitrage and experience dilution; governance must keep pace during growth phases.
Core Data
- 2025 China Sales：Approx. 140 billion RMB (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- 2024 China Sales：100.5 billion RMB (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- Paid Membership Count：Over 10.7 million (as of early 2026) (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- Membership Renewal Rate：92% (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- China Store Count：67 (as of May 2026) (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- Sam's Club U.S. FY2026 Revenue：Approx. 93 billion USD (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- Sam's Club U.S. FY2026 Operating Profit：Approx. 2.4 billion USD (Public data, independent verification not performed)
- 2026 Expansion Plan：Add 8 to 10 more stores (Public data, independent verification not performed)
Competitors / Peers
In the Chinese warehouse membership store sector, Sam's Club is virtually dominant. Costco has only opened 7 stores in seven years, concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, as its American pace struggles to replicate local penetration speeds. Local players like Hema X Member Store, Carrefour Membership Store, and fudi have mostly contracted or pivoted, while Metro was acquired by Wumart and focuses on the B2B market. The real pressure comes from Sam's Club itself—quality control controversies, the proliferation of resellers, and excessive localization are shaking its premium membership appeal, while Walmart China's 200-billion-yuan overall target for 2026 places even greater growth pressure on Sam's Club.