Walmart's "Sam'sification": Who's happy, who's anxious?

Writing by｜H.H

Editor｜Yang Yong

Source | Hydrogen Consumption Production

ID | HQingXiaoFei

Nowadays, Walmart is indeed increasingly resembling Sam’s. Walking into Walmart’s offline stores, the product categories and display methods are very similar to Sam’s, and many popular products are almost identical.

Learning from Sam’s, Walmart has indeed achieved impressive results. Recently, Walmart Group released its performance report for fiscal year 2026 ending January 31, with revenue up 5.1% year-over-year and adjusted profit up 5.4%. In the domestic market, Walmart China achieved over 170 billion yuan in revenue, with Sam’s contributing 140 billion yuan, but Walmart’s main brand remains noteworthy.

As a giant in traditional hypermarket formats, Walmart’s outstanding performance relies on developing its own brand “WoJiXian” and leveraging suppliers shared with Sam’s. Now, on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, there are countless notes promoting WoJiXian, with many products turned into must-buy hot items.

However, in this process, Walmart has gradually become a “Sam’s substitute,” requiring the headquarters to seek a balance.

For Walmart, if this is the case, how should other retailers that heavily invest in their own brands better respond to future competition? Is transforming traditional hypermarkets truly the only way?

Walmart, Looking to Sam’s?

“Is this still the Walmart I grew up with? Why does it look more and more like Sam’s inside?” As more consumers visit domestic Walmart stores, such sentiments are common.

In the past, Walmart was no different from most traditional retail supermarkets—just larger stores with more categories. Over the past year, Walmart’s stores in China have undergone significant upgrades. The display style now resembles Sam’s, with cardboard boxes replacing traditional metal shelves, many products bearing the unified “WoJiXian” logo, including large-packaged foods.

If store layout resembles Sam’s, that’s understandable. The key is that many hot-selling products sold out at Sam’s are now available in Walmart. For example, alkaline natural mineral water, sea salt soda crackers, Swiss roll mochi, and even Toy Story tents co-branded with Disney have appeared in Walmart stores. Almost without exception, these are bestsellers at Sam’s.

Source: Walmart China Official Website

No wonder more consumers are saying that Walmart now has a stronger “Sam’s flavor,” and calling it a Sam’s substitute is quite fitting.

Even more exaggeratedly, on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, many bloggers review Sam’s hot products and new items, listing must-buy items. Searching for “WoJiXian must-buy” on social media reveals numerous notes promoting products like Korean-style soybean paste noodles, oolong tea, egg tarts, salted egg yolk chips, and dried apples—more and more young people are adding these to their Walmart shopping lists.

Thanks to the store and product upgrades, Walmart’s market value officially surpassed $1 trillion in early February, becoming the world’s first retail giant to reach this milestone. According to recent financial reports, Walmart Group’s net sales in China for FY2026 reached 170 billion yuan, a 21.67% increase year-over-year.

From a leader in traditional hypermarkets to being gradually overtaken by peers like Sam’s, the decline of traditional large-format stores over recent years is quite evident, while membership-based stores like Sam’s thrive.

Why has Walmart been able to successfully turn around in the past two years when competitors are struggling? The core reason remains its development of its own brands.

Public data shows that Walmart officially launched its own brand “WoJiXian” in 2019. In China, major reforms began around 2025, with SKU numbers growing from a few dozen to nearly a thousand, covering categories like grains, fresh produce, and high-repeat purchase foods.

Source: Walmart China Official Website

Within existing Walmart stores, WoJiXian products are placed in more central locations. The share of WoJiXian in the same product categories is already quite high, which is why many consumers now call Walmart a “Sam’s without membership fees.”

However, Walmart is not simply copying Sam’s one-to-one.

While reducing SKU numbers and creating some differentiated hot products like soda crackers and alkaline mineral water, Walmart has made adjustments in flavor and packaging.

The Core Still Lies in the Supply Chain

The main reason Walmart is becoming more like Sam’s is that at the end of 2023, Walmart China publicly announced plans to overhaul Sam’s core team responsible for product selection and supply chain management to transform Walmart hypermarkets. This is not a direct copy but a supply chain collaboration.

It is well known that for retail brands focusing on own-brand products, the supply chain system is crucial.

Take Sam’s membership stores as an example. From its inception, Sam’s has focused on global supply chain integration and local innovation. Its large-scale procurement worldwide allows many suppliers to provide high-quality products, which in turn gives Sam’s strong bargaining power.

Source: Walmart China Official Website

With an efficient logistics system and localized innovations for different markets, Sam’s has been able to offer consumers more affordable and quality products. Today, more consumers are attracted to Sam’s for reliable quality and excellent after-sales service, similar to the top-tier retail chain Pang Donglai.

As a retail brand under the same group, Walmart’s reform must learn from this. Regarding supply chain, for example, the hawthorn strips launched on Sam’s early last year were supplied by Shandong Jinye Agricultural Food. By May of the same year, the supplier changed to Shandong Binzhou Jianyuan Food, and Jinye Food became a supplier for Walmart’s own brand WoJiXian’s hawthorn products.

Hawthorn strips are just one example. Other products like small duck, egg yolk pastries, nuts, instant foods, homewear, and blankets also share some suppliers between Walmart and Sam’s.

Industry insiders believe that sharing supplier resources between Walmart and Sam’s, both under the same retail group, is not surprising. They complement each other, and larger-scale procurement helps reduce costs and ensure quality.

However, unlike Sam’s, Walmart’s own brand WoJiXian emphasizes simplicity—both in ingredients and shopping experience. On this basis, Walmart innovates frequently to create hot products, truly reversing the long-standing decline of large-format stores.

While sharing suppliers helps Walmart succeed in transformation, the exclusivity once held by Sam’s is being diluted.

It’s easy to imagine that if Walmart gradually becomes a “Sam’s substitute,” offering similar products at lower prices without membership fees, how many of Sam’s millions of domestic members will still see a reason to renew their memberships?

In fact, throughout 2025, many common supermarket products like Weilong and HaoLiYou appeared on Sam’s shelves, leading to repeated external doubts about product selection. Besides quality, exclusivity is a key concern for Sam’s members.

From this perspective, Walmart Group must find a delicate balance between Walmart and Sam’s.

Is There Only One Path for Hypermarket Transformation?

The domestic retail hypermarket market is not only Walmart’s domain; giants like Yonghui Superstores and RT-Mart are also major players.

Public data shows Yonghui Superstores was founded in 2000. As one of the first brands to introduce fresh agricultural products into modern supermarkets, Yonghui grew rapidly, going public in just ten years.

Between 2016 and 2020, Yonghui reached its peak. Focusing on fresh produce and rapid expansion, it achieved revenue of 93.1 billion yuan in 2020, with a market value surpassing 100 billion. However, starting in 2021, reports of declining revenue and store closures emerged repeatedly, and it wasn’t until 2024 that Yonghui decided to reform, learning from Henan’s top retail chain Pang Donglai.

On one hand, Yonghui adjusted store layouts; on the other, it closed underperforming stores. After nearly two years of “Pang-style” reform, Yonghui still reported a net loss of 2.14 billion yuan in 2025. Industry insiders believe Yonghui’s reforms only scratched the surface, and since Pang Donglai combines supermarkets with shopping malls, its model differs from Yonghui’s.

RT-Mart, too, needs no introduction. Its parent company, Gosheng Retail, has changed hands multiple times, yet it still hasn’t turned losses into profits.

So, is there only one way for traditional hypermarkets to transform—building their own brands?

In fact, relying solely on own brands to break through is not the only solution. Industry giants leverage large procurement scales and supply chain systems to control costs effectively. For small and medium brands under these giants, launching own brands often aims at low-price market capture, but gaining consumer recognition is more than just slapping a label.

More importantly, an increasing number of retail chains are developing their own brands. Besides Sam’s and Walmart, “Poverty Paradise” Aldi mainly sells private-label products, and Pang Donglai has long relied on this strategy. Now, online channels like Xiaoxiang Supermarket and Dingdong Maicai are also entering this field.

As more retail giants develop own brands, how can differentiation be achieved?

For Walmart, the emergence of WoJiXian can help stabilize the situation, but it cannot be the sole focus. Opening community stores around consumers might become another key strategy.

Source: Walmart China Official Website

In early 2025, Walmart opened its first community store in Shenzhen, and in September announced plans for large-scale rollout. Community stores will cover more consumer areas, while large stores will support supply chain needs, making Walmart’s omnichannel store layout more complete.

Regardless of which format retail chains ultimately adopt, market trends drive the direction. For brands aiming to stay competitive long-term, patience and perseverance centered on customer needs are essential.