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It’s good to be a warehouse club operator. Costco, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club have all been on multiyear tears that have seen their membership rolls expand, with traffi c and sales rising in kind.

Foot traffic at Costco, Sam’s and BJ’s grew 6.0%, 3.2% and 5.9%, respectively, in the third quarter of 2025, according to Placer.ai, Los Altos, Calif. This continues a long-term trend that saw foot traffic at Sam’s grow every year between 2019 and 2024 while Costco and BJ’s posted gains in five of those six years.

Net sales during that period rose 63% at Costco, 50% at Sam’s and 58% at BJ’s. That level of success is not hard to explain, according to club watchers.

‘Incremental hours have added about 1% to weekly U.S. sales.’

“The big point of resonance is the value for money that clubs provide, which is something most consumers are laser-focused on because of inflation and pressure on their household budgets. Membership fees keep product prices lower, and buying in bulk is also a way to save money. Saving time is also an important differentiation for some: clubs are seen as efficient as consumers can do big shops there and stock up their pantries, which saves them having to do smaller top-up trips,” says Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at London-based GlobalData.

“Club stores offer a remarkable blend of value and discovery that appeals to mid-affluent shoppers from both a value perspective and a quality/prestige perspective. Shoppers seem to accept — maybe even embrace — the bare concrete floors, pallet displays and warehouse-style steel racks used for merchandising. For members who have sufficient cash flow and storage space to buy in bulk, clubs offer lower unit costs on many consumables — especially store-brand products… Ironically, club stores define a thrift lifestyle that may be unaffordable for many lower-income wage earners,” adds James Tenser, storyteller-in-chief at VSN Strategies, Tucson, Ariz.

COSTCO IS KING

Cost-per-unit savings on larger sizes of high-quality foods are attracting younger consumers to warehouse clubs.

With 632 warehouse clubs in the United States and Puerto Rico, Costco outnumbers Sam’s and BJ’s combined in locations, sales and profits. Despite its extensive presence, Costco continues to open new clubs. The chain added 24 net new warehouses worldwide in fiscal 2025, with about two-thirds of those in the U.S. It continues to see strong opportunities for expansion both domestically and internationally.

The Issaquah, Wash.-based club, which reported a 7.3% increase in U.S. fiscal 2025 same-store sales, excluding gas, continues to attract new members while retaining existing ones. The company ended the period with 81 million total paid members, up 6.3% year-over-year.

“To increase value and convenience for our members, on June 30, we added executive member-exclusive operating hours in the morning and an additional hour on Saturday evenings for all members in our U.S. warehouses. We estimate these incremental hours have added about 1% to weekly U.S. sales since implementation. This has been very well received by our members,” said Costco president and CEO Ron Vacchris on the company’s Q4 and fiscal 2025 annual earnings call in September. Costco also introduced a $10 credit per month for executive members on Instacart orders over $150.

Vacchris said the added perks of executive membership led to a “meaningful increase in upgrades” from gold star to executive memberships. This is particularly important as 74% of Costco’s sales come from its executive members.

Costco is especially enthusiastic about its success recruiting younger consumers to its membership ranks. CFO Gary Millerchip, speaking on the earnings call, said that roughly half of Costco’s new members in the fourth quarter were under 40.

A better shopping experience may be one benefit of Costco’s extended hours for executive members, according to Placer.ai. The location analytics firm said that between July and October “extended morning hours reduced Costco’s traffic at peak times compared to 2024, spreading visits more evenly throughout the day.”

Since the new hours were instituted, Placer.ai found that the share of visits to Costco lasting between 30 and 45 minutes increased while longer visits of 45 to 60 minutes decreased. “This shift suggests that with lighter crowds and easier navigation, Costco shoppers are more purposeful and efficient,” concludes the firm, which also found that visits under 30 minutes declined, suggesting that less-crowded clubs may make shoppers feel less rushed when shopping at Costco.

Millerchip said that Costco is looking for other ways to improve the club shopping experience for its members. He pointed, specifically, to the rollout of enhanced checkout technology in all U.S. warehouses.

“This is speeding up the checkout process by allowing our employees to scan small- and medium-sized transactions while the member is still in line. So, upon reaching the cashier, nothing has to be removed from the cart — only payment is needed,” Millerchip explained.

Saunders and Tenser share similar views on Costco’s strengths, particularly the quality and value of its Kirkland Signature own brand, as well as one very specific competitive vulnerability.

“The weakness of Costco is an e-commerce system that isn’t fully optimized,” says Saunders.

“Costco is a juggernaut, seemingly unassailable in the near term, but it may be vulnerable to digital competitors with larger assortments and better methods, especially Walmart and Amazon,” adds Tenser.

Costco reported that its e-commerce traffic was up 27% in the last quarter, driven by jewelry, housewares, apparel, tires and other non-food categories, which all saw double-digit increases. The company has partnered with Instacart for same-day delivery and curbside pickup of groceries and other goods from its club locations across the United States.

SAM’S SLAMS DIGITAL

More than a third of Sam’s Club members use the chain’s Scan & Go technology to speed up the checkout process.

It’s widely acknowledged that Sam’s Club, Bentonville, Ark., has benefited from leveraging parent company Walmart’s enterprise capabilities, distinguishing itself with digital sophistication both in stores and online.

“Sam’s Club has probably been the most tech-forward of the three major warehouse clubs,” asserts Tenser. “It adopted autonomous shelf-scanning several years ago for inventory management, and it promotes both Scan & Go checkout and free online ordering for curbside pickup.”

The chain posted a 3.8% increase in U.S. samestore sales in the most recent quarter on higher transaction counts. E-commerce sales were up 22%. Sam’s pointed to strength in its grocery business and said it continues to gain market share. Membership income grew 7% during the period, and the company highlighted its success with younger demographics.

Chris Nicholas, president and CEO for Sam’s Club U.S., speaking at Barclays’ 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference in September, expressed his belief that the stars are all aligned in the warehouse club chain’s favor. “Sam’s Club is a 42-year-old business and it still feels like a Maverick — kind of pioneering — start-up even though we’re a $90 billion business,” said Nicholas.

Much of his optimism is tied to improvements that Sam’s has made in the shopping experience. “We have this thing called Scan & Go. We’ve got 40% of our members now — more at weekends and more in some busy clubs — who scan their own shopping and then just walk straight out through the computer vision arches. That’s unheard of in retail period, let alone in the club channel. But it gets our members engaged digitally,” Nicholas explained.

‘E-commerce growth is something that we can hardly keep up with.’

E-commerce is the fastest-growing part of Sam’s business and is an area of emphasis for the chain. “E-commerce growth is something that we can hardly keep up with, even though we’re growing really fast. And our job is to work out how we grow as fast as we can sustainably… People really want it… whether it’s club pickup, whether it’s delivered from the club or whether it’s delivered from a fulfillment center. About 18% of our sales are e-commerce today. That’s grown rapidly. We expect that to be 40% and then beyond 40% over the years to come. The members are asking us to do more and to go faster in that space, and that is the future,” said Nicholas.

More young families looking to stretch their food budgets are buying frozen and refrigerated foods at Costco and other clubs.

Sam’s CEO says clubs currently account for about 7% of retail sales in the U.S. and have plenty of room for growth. The chain has grown total sales by 58% over the past five years, despite not opening any new clubs since 2017. However, that changed with the opening of a store in Tempe, Ariz., in August.

“It was 118 degrees the day we opened that club and the people are queuing around the corner for hours. We were keeping them hydrated and entertained, but still, 118 degrees is a big ask,” recalled Nicholas.

Today, Sam’s has 30 clubs in the pipeline. “Our ambition is to grow to about 15 new clubs a year. Now we’re building to that. So, we’re not there just yet, but we’ll get there. And [we’re] certainly leveraging Walmart’s real estate capabilities to help us do that as fast as we can…Those new clubs, by the way, some are incredibly high-returning,” said Nicholas.

BJ’S THINKS BIGGER

BJ’s Wholesale Club, based in Marlborough, Mass., has plenty of room to grow. The chain, which currently operates 257 clubs in 21 states, is looking to continue to expand within its East Coast stronghold while gradually moving westward into Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and elsewhere.

“BJ’s greatest strength may be its geography. It is an institution in its markets in the Northeast,” says Tenser.

He points to BJ’s “store ambiance and selection” as points of difference from Costco and Sam’s Club. “Some describe it as more comparable to large supermarkets, but with a somewhat edited assortment of about 7,000 items — larger than Costco by about half. BJ’s is also unique among wholesale clubs in that it accepts manufacturer coupons,” Tenser explains.

Robert Eddy, president, CEO and chairman at BJ’s, is bullish on the chain’s gains in market share and traffic with the former improving for 12 consecutive quarters and the latter up for 15. “These consistent results are a testament to the value that we provide to our members each day as we are guided by our purpose of taking care of the families who depend on us. This purpose has never been more relevant as many of our members are dealing with a considerable level of unpredictability in their everyday lives. This has impacted consumer confidence, which has been at low levels for much of this year. We are taking these conditions as a call to action to lean even further into value for our members’ everyday needs,” says Eddy.

BJ’s leadership believes that the investments the chain has made in category management and its Fresh 2.0 initiative will continue to pay dividends in the long run, fueling the chain’s expansion plans.

BJ’s expects to open 14 new clubs by the end of 2025. “We remain on track to add 25 to 30 new clubs in two years, and our pipeline of new clubs is as large as it has ever been,” adds Eddy, who says that clubs opened over the last five years deliver comps about three times the chain average.