Sam’s Club Reinvents Member’s Mark with Sustainable Ambitions

Sam’s Club members are increasingly looking for quality and value, as well as for items that are on-trend and offer sustainable qualities. In response to this feedback and in line with its obsession for delivering items and experiences its members desire, the retailer has announced that it is evolving its Member’s Mark Retail Brand (private brand) to become a purpose-driven brand.

Throughout the past two years, Sam’s Club has worked behind the scenes to strengthen its Member’s Mark assortment. It has launched, renovated, and reformulated more than 1200 items since 2020, and as a result, more and more members are citing Member’s Mark products as a reason they renew their memberships.

To build on this momentum, Sam’s Club is introducing a new identity for Member’s Mark – “Made with Our Member and Planet in Mind” – that comes with an aspiration for all items to be of the highest quality while featuring trend-right innovation and a focus on people and the planet.

New Look to Reinforce Quality, Trend & Innovation

To celebrate the new brand identity, Sam’s Club is introducing a new Member’s Mark logo and design construct featuring a subtle checkmark, helping to communicate the high-quality of Member’s Mark items and its focus on people and the planet. Members will begin to see the new logo and check design included on packaging over the next 18 months.

As it continues to innovate Member’s Mark items, Sam’s Club will partner closely with the Walmart Sustainability team and leverage the My Member’s Mark Community, a group formed in 2019 that includes more than 40,000 Sam’s Club members who provide feedback and input on Member’s Mark items throughout every phase of a product’s lifecycle.

Member’s Mark was founded by Sam’s Club in 1998, and in 2017, Sam’s Club consolidated its 20 proprietary brands into Member’s Mark. Member’s Mark items are available across a variety of categories, including grocery, health and wellness, baby, apparel, home and furniture products, office, technology, and more.

“The Sam’s Club member is at the center of everything we do, so as we continue to evolve the Member’s Mark brand, we intend to develop items that are reflective of the ingredients, processes and materials they want – and don’t want – in their products. Now, as we introduce new Member’s Mark items and renovate existing ones, we are making decisions that not only focus on quality, innovation and value, but on the impact we are making on the world around us.”

Prathibha Rajashekhar, senior vice president, Private Brands and Sourcing, Sam’s Club

A Vow to Focus on Regeneration

In 2020, Walmart announced its goal to become a regenerative company, which inspired Sam’s Club to re-evaluate Member’s Mark. With many highly rated Member’s Mark items already including sustainable attributes, like the Fair Trade Certified Member’s Mark Colombian Supremo Coffee, Sam’s Club saw an opportunity to continue evolving its private brand in a way that serves people, climate, and nature while reducing waste.

In addition to a set of new goals that it aspires to achieve by 2025, Sam’s Club aims to remove certain ingredients from Member’s Mark food and consumable products, while boosting its assortment of items that are made using practices that promote animal welfare, help support land and ocean health, mitigate deforestation, utilize more sustainable textiles, and come from renewable sources.

It also aims to incorporate more recyclable, reusable, and industrially compostable components in Member’s Mark items and packaging. Additionally, Sam’s Club plans to take an active role in reducing the brand’s environmental footprint by calling for suppliers of Member’s Mark products to participate in Walmart’s signature private sector consortium to reduce or avoid one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions: Project Gigaton.

Sam’s Club has also set an aspiration to source Member’s Mark items more responsibly and to create inclusive economic opportunities by diversifying its supplier base over the years. Above all, Sam’s Club aims to embrace a regenerative mindset as it develops Member’s Mark items, placing nature, humanity, and its members at the center of item innovation and renovation.

By Published On: April 19th, 2022Tags: , , , , ,

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About the Author: Christopher Durham

Christopher Durham is the president of the Velocity Institute. Prior to this he founded the groundbreaking site My Private Brand. He is the co-founder of The Vertex Awards. He began his retail career building brands at Food Lion and Lowe’s Home Improvement. Durham has worked with retailers around the world, including Albertsons, Family Dollar, Petco, Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy, Metro Canada. Durham has published seven definitive books on private brands, including Fifty2: The My Private Brand Project and Vanguard: Vintage Originals.

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