Sam's Club is opening a new store in Texas with no checkout counters

Sam’s Club is looking to make strides with a brand-new store location that will completely remove checkout counters.

According to Grocery Dive, the warehouse retail store chain will open its new store in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine, Texas, next week. The store will not have checkout counters and will utilize some of that extra space to “show off products that are only available online,” Sam’s Club President and CEO Chris Nicholas said during a keynote session at Groceryshop on Monday. Shoppers will be able to purchase items using the store’s Scan & Go smartphone app, which allows users to scan each item in their cart and pay before exiting the store.

Sam’s Club latest initiative hopes to make the shopping experience more quick and efficient. New technology within retail spaces have historically been met with skepticism. But Nicholas said that Sam’s Club total removal of checkout counters will prove to be beneficial, since its shoppers “are highly receptive to technology that allows them to shop more quickly and engage digitally when visiting its physical stores, regardless of their income group or age,” Grocery Dive reported.

Additionally, about 30% of Sam’s Club’s customers use Scan & Go regularly while shopping, Nicholas said. Half of its customers are also “digitally engaged.”

Nicholas added that the app-focused process is changing how people shop at big-box retailers. Contrary to popular belief, more shoppers are visiting Sam’s Club to do small grocery hauls or pick up a few items instead of shopping in bulk, he explained.

In order to prevent shoplifting and theft, Sam’s Club uses AI-based scanning technology at store exits, which makes sure that shoppers have paid for their items as they exit the store. Such “time-saving innovations have helped Sam’s Club position itself as more than just a warehouse club,” Nicholas said, per Grocery Dive.