How did a chocolate pie offend middle-class sensibilities of Sam’s Club members in China?
Some Chinese consumers are asking whether US membership-only bulk retailer has begun to misread the market
Sam’s Club, the US membership-only bulk retailer owned by Walmart, has long been seen as one of the foreign supermarkets most attuned to the needs of China’s middle class.
Each year, millions of urban Chinese families pay a 260 yuan (US$36.28) annual fee in exchange for what they see as access to a globally curated, quality lifestyle - featuring products like Scotch whisky, Chilean dried prunes, and chilled beef from the United States and Australia.
That selection has come to symbolise a middle-class sensibility attuned to globally focused consumption. But that premium image was shaken recently when Sam’s Club stores in China began stocking a domestically made chocolate pie - priced at 49.9 yuan for a pack of 48 – touching a nerve among its loyal membership base.
Well-known for its low price, the pie in question is often found in neighbourhood convenience stores or corner shops in China. But it falls short of what many health-conscious, quality-driven Chinese middle-class shoppers consider “decent” or “premium”.
Wendy Liu, a Shenzhen-based operations director at a foreign firm and a Sam’s Club premium member who pays 600 yuan a year for the privilege, said her trust in the brand was eroding.
“This chocolate pie is just the trigger,” she said. “The real concern is that Sam’s standards for supplier quality may be slipping.”
Many disappointed members took to social media to question Sam’s Club’s product curation. They shared the same complaint: “I pay 260 yuan a year not to buy things I can get at any corner shop.”
These domestic brands are fine, I buy them too, but they belong in budget convenience stores, not a global-membership supermarket
Others went further, filing complaints to Sam’s Club’s American headquarters. The incident quickly gained traction across major Chinese social media platforms, with related topics garnering tens of millions of views and sparking widespread public debate.
Although the chocolate pie has been pulled from Sam’s Club’s online platform, consumers have noticed a growing number of domestic, low-cost snacks on store shelves – fuelling doubts about whether the retailer is straying from its original value proposition.