Sam’s Club Announces Major Changes at Louisiana Locations

For shoppers of Louisiana's 14 Sam's Club locations, you are about to be dragged into the generation of AI, artificial intelligence, whether you want to be or not. The question of whether or not it will be a good thing will take some time to determine but one thing is for sure. You're going to notice a big difference in the coming months when you do your shopping.

Sam's Club is the warehouse club of the Walmart brand of stores. The "club" offers memberships to those in the community who are willing to pay an annual fee for "incentivized savings". Most of the savings for Sam's Club shoppers come in the form of bulk discounts. You don't just buy a can of soup, you buy a case of soup. Buying in bulk lowers the unit cost of the item and savvy shoppers can stock up and save money

Of the two biggest complaints that shoppers who frequent Sam's Club one of them would have to be the physical strength required to shop there. Not only are the baskets or shopping buggies the store uses huge but the size of the items that we are buying in bulk can make the weight of the car almost immovable for some of our smaller framed shoppers.

But the largest complaint that I hear from Sam's Club Shoppers, besides they ran out of rotisserie chicken, is about the length of the wait to get out of the store. Sam's Club has an employee review every basket, every purchase, and every receipt before you leave the store. It helps in loss prevention and this is where AI, artificial intelligence, is about to become your friend. 

Sam's Club announced on Tuesday that they will begin using AI to scan baskets on the way out of the store. This should reduce the wait time that customers have between making their purchases and hauling their items to their car. The new technology is already in about 20% of Sam's Club stores across the nation. The rest of the stores will be outfitted with the technology by the end of 2024.