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Sam's West, Inc. (doing business as Sam's Club) is an American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Walmart, founded in 1983 and named after Walmart founder Sam Walton. , Sam's Club chain serves 47 million U.S. and Puerto Rican members and is the 8th largest U.S. retailer. , Sam's Club ranks second in sales volume among warehouse clubs with 57 billion in sales behind Costco, despite the fact that Sam's has more retail locations.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Costco Wholesale company profile )〕 Sam's Club had sales of $57.157 billion in FY 2014.〔 It reported a 0.3% sales increase in 2014, 4.1% in 2013, and 8.4% sales increase in 2012. This is significantly higher growth than Walmart U.S. stores, which did not have higher than 2% growth since 2010. Its major competitors are Costco and BJ's Wholesale Club. , Sam's Club operated 652 membership warehouse clubs in 48 U.S. states and Puerto Rico.〔http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-locations〕 Oregon and Vermont are the only states where Sam's Club does not operate. It also operates 160 locations in Mexico, 27 locations in Brazil〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Walmart Corporate - Brazil )〕 and 12 in China.〔(Welcome to Wal-Mart China )〕 Locations generally range in size from , with an average club size of approximately .〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Walmart FY 2009 Annual Report )〕 As of 2015, Walmart Mexico has more than 125 Sam's Club stores around the country. There was also Sam's Club in Canada, in which the last location closed in 2009. ==History== The first Sam's Club opened on April 7, 1983 in Midwest City, Oklahoma in the United States. In 1987, Sam's Club made its first acquisition by purchasing West Monroe, Louisiana-based SuperSaver Wholesale Warehouse Club; the purchase expanded the chain by 24 locations. The stores were owned by Alton Howard and his son John. John's daughter Korie later married Willie Robertson and became a regular cast member on ''Duck Dynasty''.〔Willie and Korie Robertson with Mark Schlabach, ''The Duck Commander Family''. West Monroe, LA: Howard Books (owned by Simon & Schuster, 2013, p. 33〕 In 1989, Sam's entered New Jersey with a store in Delran in a former Two Guys / Jefferson Ward store. This was Walmart's first entry into the Northeast. The first Walmart discount store in New Jersey opened in 1991 in Turnersville. The company entered the Pennsylvania market in 1990. In 1993, Walmart acquired PACE Membership Warehouse from Kmart and converted many (but not all) PACE locations into Sam's Clubs. The latest flagship store opening was in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The largest Sam's Club store is located in Pineville, North Carolina with of retail space that was formerly an Incredible Universe. On September 24, 2006, Sam's Club received a new logo. The new logo has an updated serif font and features a green and blue diamond inside the big blue diamond, found above the word 'Sam's'. Sam's Club's previous slogan was "We Are In Business For Small Business" until 2006; the decision to remove the slogan comes as Sam's Club attempts to remove itself from serving just small businesses and open up to more individual customers. In December 2007. Sam's Club launched a new slogan, "Enjoy the Possibilities". Since then it became an official advertising slogan, mentioned in television and radio advertisements, but it is not mentioned on its website. As of January 2008, the "Enjoy the Possibilities" slogan was no longer in use. Sam's Club launched their latest slogan "Savings Made Simple" in the fourth quarter of 2009. Starting in April 2007, there was speculation of a possible sale or spinoff of Sam's Club from parent company Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. At Walmart's 2007 annual shareholder's meeting in June, management said that Sam's Club is not for sale, although they did not say they are not considering a spinoff. On February 26, 2009, Walmart Canada announced that it would close all six of its Canadian Sam's Club locations. This was part of Walmart Canada's decision to shift focus towards supercenter stores, but some industry observers suggested that the operation was struggling in competition with Costco and the non-membership The Real Canadian Superstore (known as Maxi & Cie in Quebec), that had a well-established history in the country. Sam's Club also rebranded the two as yet unopened locations as new Walmart Superstores. In January 2010, it was announced that ten stores would be closed, including four in California. At the same time, Sam's will open six new stores at various locations in the United States. On January 24, 2010, it was announced that approximately 11,200 Sam's Club employees would be laid off. The layoffs resulted from the decision to outsource product sampling duties to an outside company (Rogers, Arkansas-based Shopper Events, which already performs in-store product demonstrations for Walmart) and to eliminate New Business Membership Representative positions throughout the chain. Most of the laid-off employees were part-time and represented about 10% of the total Sam's Club workforce. Rosalind Brewer was named as the new CEO for Sam's Club, a change that came into effect on February 1, 2012. On January 24, 2014, it was announced that Wal-Mart will cut 2,300 jobs at the under performing Sam's Club locations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sam's Club」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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