NEW YORK CITY, NY - Buckle up, Amazon, there’s a new innovation center in town. Sam’s Club, one of Walmart’s banners, announced it will open both a new store and innovation center in Dallas, Texas. According to Reuters, this spot will be a hub for new innovation—the warehouse chain will test its new tech there before it’s implemented in other stores.
This new center, titled Sam’s Club Now, boasts of new technology such as electronic shelf labels that automatically update prices and 700 installed cameras to manage inventory. (Remind anyone of Amazon Go?)
Sam’s Club Now, the news source reported, will also hop onto the shorter checkouts train with the Scan and Go feature on its mobile app. With this tech, customers can use voice search to find items in store, pick up orders, and create shopping lists.
“Sam’s Club Now gives us one more avenue to develop, test, and refine technology and features that will create new shopping experiences at scale,” John Furner, President and CEO, told reporters on a conference call.
Although Sam’s Club is owned by Walmart, the new center will be seperate from Walmart’s own internal research lab. However, with this latest investment in stores outside of itself, Walmart might be looking to boost its competition against Amazon by bringing a few more of its banners to the fight.
Will we see more news like this in the months to come? AndNowUKnow will keep its eyes peeled.
