GuShiio.com Wen| Nicole, produced| Retail Krypton Planet
Coincidentally, the 2025 Spring Festival holiday, January 31, is the day when Andrew Miles, deputy CEO of Wal-Mart China and president of Sam’s Club, officially retires. Previously, Wal-Mart China held several rounds of grand farewell ceremonies for him.
Wen Ande, a British native, joined Wal-Mart China in 2012 as chief operating officer of Sam’s Club. In 2017, he was promoted to president of Sam’s Club. Since 2020, he has served as deputy CEO of Wal-Mart China and president of Sam’s Club.
Usually, Sam’s China employees will like to call Wen Ande the British grandfather. In an internal email from all employees of Wal-Mart China, Zhu Xiaojing, fully affirmed her influence in Wal-Mart China over the past 12 years.
While the membership model is still new to China consumers and Sam is exploring a business model more in line with the China market, under the leadership of Wen Ande, China Sam’s Club has launched a series of strategic changes and entered the fast lane of development. By creating an omni-channel membership model, Sam continues to create excellent results……”
Sam opened his first store in Shenzhen in 1996 and spent 16 years opening 8 stores. In the 12 years after Wen Ande took office, the number of Sam’s China stores has increased nearly 7 times to 53 (as of the end of January 2025).
Especially in the past few years, in the China market, Sam has transformed membership stores from niche business formats into synonymous with middle-class quality consumption, and has also turned himself into a model for his local colleagues and even American Sam to follow.
Regardless of the financial report figures or the perception of industry insiders, Sam’s Club has been a powerful engine for Wal-Mart China in recent years. There has been no official confirmation, but some media disclosed that Sam China’s omni-channel sales in 2024 will exceed 100.5 billion yuan, of which online sales account for more than 48%. rdquo;
John David Rainey, who took office in May 2023, once revealed that in terms of total revenue, some of our best-performing (Sam) stores are in China.“ rdquo;
In the past few years,”Retail Krypton Planet” has contacted Wen Ande several times. In our opinion,Integrity and surprise are the two most important characteristics of China Sam during Wen Ande’s tenure.
On the one hand, we advocate discipline and concentration.Change Sam’s initial 16 years of swing in the China market, adhere to the principle of member stores, firmly use membership fees to screen users, and spend 10+ years promoting Sam to polish differentiated commodity power.
On the other hand, we dare to make local innovations without wavering the foundation of member stores.For example, compared with the provinces of Sam’s Club in the United States that emphasize faster, better and cheaper, Sam China puts quality first in branding, making Sam the mainstream entrance for quality consumption among the middle class in China.
A more typical breakthrough in the omni-channel retail model such as Sam ‘s Store + Yuncang allows it to seize the current trend of instant retail consumption in China, increase the frequency of member consumption, expand more members, unleash greater potential, and become a textbook-style demonstration of China’s peers ‘transformation into omni-channel retail.
stubbornness of integrity”
Wen Ande is tall, with thick eyebrows and sharp eyes. He looks a little serious, but he is actually happy and values communication and pays attention to details. It is said that Wen Ande will make the final review of the font and color saturation for almost every slogan and poster appearing in Sam’s store.
At Walmart’s China headquarters in Shenzhen, a 5-minute walk from the nearest Sam’s Club store at Fukuda India Center, Wen Ande appears almost every day. He stops and stops in the store, communicates with employees or members, and arranges crooked shopping carts neatly. His natural movements are muscular memories of years of front-line practice.
Beyond the details, Sam’s Club during Wen Ande’s tenure was extremely stubborn about principles.
Doug McMillon, Wal-Mart’s global CEO, once told Wen Ande not to project regular retail ideas into membership-based stores, because retail is about details, while membership-based is about regulations, and you have to think in a completely different way. rdquo;
This is the principle that Wen Ande expressed to employees and partners countless times during his tenure, that is, the biggest difference between Sam’s membership model and other retailers is that,“We don’t make money from suppliers ‘entry fees or gross profit margins. We mainly rely on membership income, so our first consideration is not sales.& rdquo;
For member stores, the profit margin is half that of an ordinary retail supermarket, but the sales volume can be ten times that of the latter. Therefore, through a large amount of stable supply growth, member stores can continue to explore the average price of good goods and continuously increase the value of members, thereby attracting more members to join and renew.
As a result, in the years after 2012, Sam’s stores reduced the number of tens of thousands of SkUs from the previous model swing period to 4000. Subsequently, the membership fee standard, which has remained unchanged in 20 years since entering China, rose for the first time, from 150 yuan to 260 yuan and 680 yuan for outstanding members, in order to accurately screen high-net-worth users.
In a contact in 2021, Wen Ande told “Retail Krypton Planet” that it is very difficult to make things simple, simple and efficient. rdquo;
For example, Sam only sells a limited number of sku, although he sells more products, has more choices, and may have more sales. ldquo; But we know that the increase in every product affects efficiency, so our task is to select the best product for members among many categories, so they no longer need to choose from many products. When we try every means to make business simple and make shopping easy for members, to do this well, we need to adhere to principles. rdquo;
The so-called adhering to principles means, first of all, reaching consensus. Then we stick to it day after day.
This involves the cultural core issue of the long-term development of an enterprise, that is, strategic education and cultural unity within the organization. We must work very hard and let every employee have a correct understanding of membership and an open mind. If you can’t do this, you will become a resistance to the development of the company.& rdquo;
Slogans like Bulk vs. Singles and Disciplined Structure Processes began to appear on the walls of Sam’s office area in various forms. In all Sam’s stores, we also began to post in conspicuous places why we need large packaging?& rdquo; Slogans such as this continue to clarify to consumers the principle of membership.
The Logo of Sam’s Club is mainly blue, but in Sam’s China, the idea that both the badges and belts are purple came from Wen Ande.
Wen Ande highly praises a book called “Purple Cow”, written by Seth Godin, former Yahoo marketing vice president. You can imagine driving through the European countryside, with cows of all colors on the slopes, black, brown, black, and suddenly a purple cow appears. It will squeeze out those ordinary cows one by one until it completely occupies your mind.& rdquo;
Gu Junhua, a domestic warehousing member store research expert, believes that every retail format has its underlying logic. Only by abiding by that principle and rule can we truly become the king of that format. Otherwise, you will never look like you.& rdquo;
An employee who has worked in Sam for many years said that it is sometimes very simple for a store selling fruits and vegetables to become the top of the world’s top 500 companies to do trivial details.” ldquo; But the process is also very difficult. For Sam, he has to stick to his principles for many years, rejecting many shortcuts and temptations to make quick money while making short-term profits but contrary to his principles.” rdquo;
Surprisingly adhering to principles: Quality and supply chains
Over the past 10 years, China Sam has unswervingly shaken the foundation of membership stores, consolidated the style of membership stores, and has also been constantly making local innovations.
For example, the omni-channel retail model of Sam ‘s Store + Yuncang has been widely discussed inside and outside the industry. However, there is another innovation that is rarely discussed.
That is to say, compared with the emphasis on price by member stores in the U.S. market, China Sam puts quality first in branding and product creation, in order to build a sense of trust in quality consumption among middle-class families.
For example, Sam has implemented a complete cold chain system for beef in China from factory to store, ensuring the best taste of fresh beef fed in Australia for 100 days. This investment is costly, but it also allows Sam to be the first in the industry to build a reputation for beef, which is very prominent. For another example, the heroic pieces of croissants and Swiss rolls with the best ingredients and recipes in the world have allowed a large group of middle-class families in first-and second-tier cities to build strong trust in Sam.
For many retailers, rapid launch of products is important, but Sam’s team sometimes sacrifices time to ensure quality. Buyers will spend a lot of time studying the details of products with suppliers, go into factories or go deep into the fields, and study the products thoroughly.
Today’s domestic retailers, no one does not envy Sam’s hard-core supplier ecosystem in China. Strategic suppliers provide differentiated products for Sam, and even spend their own money to develop products and production lines for Sam. But this ecology did not grow spontaneously, but was created by Sam over the past 10 years.
In 2014, Sam’s China private brands accounted for only 1% of the total business volume, and many suppliers were reluctant to invest in additional large packaging production lines for Sam. However, during Wen Ande’s tenure, China Sam established his determination to vigorously develop his own brand. Wen Ande said,“I know many of you are not convinced, but I will not wait for you, we will vigorously develop our own brands starting today. rdquo;
Even a large supplier might have been abandoned by Sam China at that time. If this brand could not give member value, then even if the annual sales of this item in Sam could reach tens of millions, we would be willing to gradually abandon it and promote our own products from scratch. rdquo;
In the past 10 years, Sam has developed 700-800 types of his own brand Member’s Mark products, covering almost all categories. Swiss rolls, lime juice, and potato bread are known to everyone, which has also allowed Sam to continue to break through and penetrate into more markets.
Most of the products in Sam’s store are not ready-made products picked out by Sam, but are jointly developed based on Sam’s rich insight into members ‘preferences and combined with the capabilities of suppliers.
During a contact, Wen Ande told “Retail Krypton Planet” that the Member ‘s Mark logo has a hook in the middle and has a deep meaning behind it.
Sam develops Member s Mark and interacts and tests with members many times to understand their preferences and needs. At the same time, quality testing is also used to ensure high-quality products. When a series of tests are completed, a check will be drawn to ensure that this is a high-quality product that can become a private brand.
Whether it’s branded goods or through private label goods, Sam’s Club provides two core values to its members. One is to provide surprises for members through differentiated products; the other is to help members save money by taking advantage of supply chain advantages.
In the post-Wen Ande era, Sam’s Challenge
The China market is already Sam’s brightest battlefield in the world.
However, many people, including people in the retail industry, may not know Wen Ande, let alone the names of Sam’s previous presidents of China, but they are familiar with Sam’s heroic products at their fingertips. To some extent, this means that for a retail giant, it is more important to have a deterministic strategy and the organizational power to ensure stable execution, so as to continuously provide a steady stream of differentiated quality products and win people’s hearts and minds.
Looking back at Sam, who has been exploring the China market for more than 20 years, there are no secrets, but there are two remarkable points:
One is the precise positioning, persistence and execution of business formats.
In an industry speech in 2023, Zhu Xiaojing, President and CEO of Walmart China, mentioned that many people attribute Sam’s success to paid membership. But internally, the most fundamental reason for Sam’s success is his own positioning of precise differentiation, as well as his persistence and strong execution of positioning. rdquo;
Of course, in addition to being himself and adhering to principles, China Sam has also made a lot of localized innovations that will not shake its foundation.
Another is long-term doctrine.
Sam has been unknown in China for nearly 20 years. The preparation period for his popularity in the past few years is quite long and has taken many detours. At first, Sam looked like a department store with over 10,000 Sku in China, and he also converted some Sam’s stores into Wal-Mart hypermarkets.
It took Sam 21 years to accumulate the first 1 million paid members in the China market. During the long period of suffering and waiting, many other peers have given up, including some foreign member stores that entered China at the same time as it.
According to Wal-Mart’s internal letter, after Wen Ande retired, he was replaced by Jane Ewing, senior vice president of operations at Wal-Mart’s International Department. As acting president of Sam’s Club, he reported to Zhu Xiaojing, President and CEO of Wal-Mart China. Jane Ewing, like Wen Ande, joined Wal-Mart in 2012. However, she successively served in the U.S. and International Departments of Wal-Mart.
Sam China, which Jane Ewing took over, is still making great progress. But at the same time, while attracting much attention, he is also facing the pressure of being strictly examined by the market with a magnifying glass. In the past year, Sam has frequently been on hot searches, and it is not easy to maintain a sense of quality while running fast. In addition, Costco’s entry into China, the rapid rise of local member stores such as Fudi and M Club Stores, as well as Hema, Xiaoxiang Supermarket, Dingdong Shopping and even Fat Donglai, will make Sam face more severe market competition in the market.
But what was Sam’s biggest challenge? In fact, it is still day after day the observance of principles, the hunger for innovation, and the practice of membership values that are almost faith. Every report card of Sam in China in the future will also be a continuation of this set of rules. Sam’s biggest opponent is himself. He continues to be more ruthless to himself and does not leave any chance for his opponent.
Perhaps the most important lesson that China’s retail industry learned from Sam is that in the midst of noisy competition, the biggest moat is always a seemingly unintelligent stubbornness and day-to-day execution.
