Can I use my phone for Sams card?

Sam's Club announced on September 17, 2020 that it plans to roll out new Scan & Go at the pump ... [+] functionality across all its fuel stations by the end of the year.

Cancel Christmas! Sam’s Club just announced that it is introducing Scan & Go pay functionality at the gas pump. After piloting the capability at 70 Sam’s Club stores throughout the country, Sam’s club announced today that it will roll out the capability to all 518 of its own and operated fuel stations by the end of the year. 

Here’s how it works:

Sam’s Club members simply download the Sam’s Club app on their mobile phones. They then can click the Scan & Go icon within the app, scan a QR code at the pump, select their method of payment, start fueling up the car, and then, voila, drive away and ultimately receive an electronic receipt via email.

It is another iteration of contactless shopping for which many in the retail industry have been waiting. 

For Sam’s Club, though, it is just another day at the office. Already the most innovative American retailer not named Amazon AMZN, Sam’s Club continues to set the innovation bar higher and higher with each passing month. And, as cool as Scan & Go at the pump is, it is just another iambic pentameter verse within Sam’s Club’s ongoing love sonnet about what cloud commerce and mobile technology can do for retail innovation. 

For background, Sam’s Club is the American gold standard for Scan & Go retail technology. Since 2016, Sam’s Club members can walk into any Sam’s Club store, take out their mobile phones, scan barcodes, pay electronically, and be on their way without ever having to wait in lines. Then, just a few years later, Sam’s Club also kicked it up a notch and created an entirely new Scan & Go concept store called Sam’s Club Now (see video below) that can only be shopped with the same technology — or said another way, no old school checklanes allowed! 

However, Sam’s Club really began making like Romeo proclaiming his love to Juliet on the balcony of retail innovation once the coronavirus hit. In the past six months, it has rolled out a number of impressive capabilities, of which Scan & Go at the pump is still just Act II of what is likely still much more to come, especially when one looks at the combined power of Sam’s Club and Walmart WMT together.

Since April, Sam’s Club has launched concierge shopping (it took them just six days) and curbside pickup at all its stores, begun shipping e-commerce orders from 15% of its store base, and now, as of today, Sam’s Club members no longer have to stick a credit card into a reader at a gas pump ever again.

I sat down with Eddie Garcia, Sam’s Club Chief Product Officer and one of the key architects of these inventions, and asked him what it took to bring them all to market so quickly. The interview is available below in full.

Here are the key takeaways:

First, Scan & Go at the pump is just a natural extension of all the amazing innovation Sam’s Club has already put into place. Better, more frictionless experiences are the key to consumer happiness, and so if they and contactless retail can all be advanced under COVID-19, why not bring them to the pump?

Second, things like Scan & Go at the pump or in-store, curbside pickup, etc. all still have miles to go in their evolution. Right now, all these systems require customers to take out and engage the experiences actively within a mobile app. But, what if they didn’t?

What if instead the apps could sit passively in one’s pocket and other technologies like ultrasonic radio waves or computer vision could identify customers in store or at the pump, and consumers could do whatever it is they want to do and just be on their way? 

Shades of this concept have already started to pop, too. Just two weeks ago Giant Eagle launched a new convenience store experience, similar to Amazon Go, where consumers don’t have to use an app to enter the store. The system just recognizes individuals upon entry. This same idea could easily one day happen when people drive up to a pump as well, and, when the time is right, according to Garcia, don’t be surprised if Sam’s Club is leading the way on it.

Third, Scan & Go at the pump has far reaching implications. Read Walmart’s recent press releases about its new Walmart+ subscription program and two things are evident. One, Scan & Go shopping is an unlockable feature for Walmart+ subscribers. Two, Walmart also confirmed via a spokesperson that Walmart+ subscribers will in the future get the same 5% discounts on gas that they receive under the program at Walmart, Murphy, and Murphy Express EXPR stations at Sam’s Club stations as well. Sam’s Club Scan & Go at the pump is, in other words, just another tool in the toolbox of total Walmart to provide more value and a more personalized experience to all Walmart customers. 

Gas discounts, checkout-free shopping in-store, not having to touch almost a single thing across both experiences — on one hand, they altogether sound like a shopping amid coronavirus dream, while, on the other, they all sound like something that Amazon and Sam’s Club and Walmart’s collective competition can’t touch.

Pun intended.

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