Sam's Club is strapping tablets to its in-store demo carts and building out a data-driven advertising machine that tracks what members buy, then serves them targeted ads across the store floor and beyond. The Walmart-owned warehouse chain says the move will improve the shopping experience. Privacy researchers say it may do the opposite.
The initiative is part of a broader rebrand of the retailer's advertising arm, the Member Access Platform, known internally as MAP, into what Sam's Club now calls the Retail Experience Network. The system links every in-store purchase back to individual membership accounts, creating what the company describes as a closed-loop measurement tool for advertisers. The U.S. Sun reported that the tablet rollout builds on more than 40 years of first-party membership data the chain has collected from its roughly 600 clubs across the United States and Puerto Rico.
For shoppers who just want to grab a bulk pack of paper towels and leave, the question is straightforward: does a screen mounted on a sample cart make the trip better, or does it make you feel like a data point on legs?
Harvey Ma, the vice president and general manager of MAP, framed the expansion as a win for both brands and members. Ma told Progressive Grocer:
"Our role is to leverage more than 40 years of first-party deterministic membership data to create programs that deliver clear business outcomes for our advertisers, while also ensuring those experiences are engaging and valuable for our members."
The word "deterministic" is doing heavy lifting there. Unlike probabilistic ad models that guess who a shopper might be, deterministic data ties purchases directly to a known account. Every swipe of a Sam's Club membership card feeds the system. Every checkout receipt closes the loop.
The tablets on demo carts are only one piece. Sam's Club has also rolled out a MAP Influencer Program and extended its ad reach through Meta, allowing brands to target Sam's Club members on Facebook and Instagram. A separate tool called MAP Rest of Market Analysis uses data from Circana, drawn from more than 500 million loyalty cards, to estimate how an ad campaign performs outside Sam's Club locations.
The retailer is not shy about where it wants to go next. In a forward-looking statement, the company said it is "building toward more intelligent, agent-driven systems that reduce friction, increase speed and translate insights into action, delivering stronger outcomes for advertisers and better experiences for members."
Agent-driven systems. That phrase suggests automation and artificial intelligence making real-time decisions about what ads a shopper sees, possibly before the shopper even knows what aisle to visit.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have studied exactly this kind of ad personalization, and their findings should give Sam's Club pause. Wayne Hoyer, a marketing professor and co-author of the research, described what happens when consumers sense they are being tracked:
"When consumers are exposed to these ads, they make an assessment of ambiguity, such as, 'What is this?' and whether this is intrusive surveillance, such as, 'Are they watching me?'"
"If the answer is yes, this creates a negative emotion that can negatively affect purchase intentions," Hoyer said. His bottom line was blunt: "Consumers do not like to be watched. This is perceived as an invasion of privacy."
One scenario in the research asked participants to imagine talking about headphones near an inactive Alexa device and then seeing an ad for them the next day. The discomfort that scenario produced is the same feeling a shopper might get when a tablet on a demo cart seems to know a little too much about what's in the rest of the cart.
Sam's Club has not publicly addressed what privacy disclosures or opt-out options, if any, it provides to members regarding the expanded ad targeting and data use. That silence is worth noting. When a company builds a surveillance-grade advertising platform on top of decades of purchase history, the burden falls on that company to explain, clearly and up front, how the data is used and how a member can say no.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Sam's Club ranked eighth on Progressive Grocer's 2024 list of top food and consumables retailers in North America. Its parent company, Walmart U.S., claimed the top spot. But the competitor Sam's Club most wants to close the gap with is Costco, a chain that has built fierce member loyalty through a very different playbook.
Costco has earned that loyalty by keeping things simple and keeping prices low. The Kirkland-brand warehouse giant recently reduced prices on grocery staples, reinforcing its value proposition at a time when inflation still stings household budgets.
And while Sam's Club is adding screens and ad-tech layers to the shopping experience, Costco has moved in the opposite direction on automation. The chain pulled back on self-checkout in favor of having employees handle scanning, a move that signals a preference for human interaction over frictionless tech.
The contrast is telling. One warehouse club is betting that data monetization and advertiser revenue will fund a better member experience. The other is betting that a straightforward, no-gimmick shopping trip is the experience members actually want.
Costco has also tightened other policies. The chain enforced voucher limits and denied cash redemptions at checkout, drawing some member complaints but keeping its operational model disciplined. Even its most famous perk, the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, has become a symbol of the company's commitment to holding the line on price. Costco's CEO confirmed the combo price will remain unchanged, a small gesture that carries outsized weight with budget-conscious families.
Sam's Club points to at least one early success story. GhostBed, a mattress brand, tested embedded Expert Review Videos through the platform and reported a fourfold sales lift when those videos ran alongside MAP media placements. That is a significant number, if it holds across categories and over time.
But a single brand testimonial does not answer the harder questions. How many of Sam's Club's roughly 600 locations will get the tablet-equipped carts? Are they already deployed, or still in a planning phase? What specific product categories will use the system first? And most importantly: will members who feel watched simply stop showing up?
The retail media business is booming across the industry. Walmart, Amazon, and Target have all built advertising platforms that monetize shopper data. Sam's Club is not an outlier for wanting a piece of that revenue. But the membership model adds a layer of expectation. People pay an annual fee to shop at Sam's Club. They are not browsing a free website. They are paying customers who may reasonably expect that their purchase history is not being packaged and sold to the highest bidder.
Costco has also made quiet operational tweaks that prioritize member convenience over tech flash. The difference in philosophy is not subtle.
Harvey Ma's language about "engaging and valuable" experiences sounds polished. But the University of Texas research suggests that what feels engaging to an advertiser can feel invasive to a shopper. The gap between those two perceptions is where trust breaks down.
Sam's Club has every right to compete aggressively with Costco. It has every right to build an advertising business. But its members have a right to transparency, clear, plain-English disclosure about what data is collected, how it is used, who sees it, and how to opt out. None of that information appears in the company's public statements so far.
If you are going to turn a shopping cart into an ad platform, the least you can do is tell people before they grab the handle.