Sam’s Club has a new logo. Look closely at the apostrophe

FastCompany: Inside a newly remodeled Sam’s Club in Springdale, Arkansas, I get a glimpse of the next generation of big-box shoppers. Young parents steer carts with toddlers wedged between paper towels while newlyweds load up on pantry items. As they pop items into their carts, they scan each one with their phones. And when it comes time to exit, they don’t line up at a register or even bag their items. They walk straight out the doors. The company’s high-tech Scan & Go system registers their purchases and sends them a receipt.

[Photo: Sam’s Club] This focus on younger, tech-forward customers is expressed on the building itself, in the big sign over the entrance. Sam’s Club—the warehouse club that Walmart founded in 1983—has unveiled a new logo. The wordmark appears in lowercase, set in a bolder, rounder typeface, washed in a blue that’s noticeably brighter than the muted navy the brand has used in the past. [Photo: Sam’s Club] But the most distinctive part of the branding is the small, deliberate flourish in the word “Sam’s.” The apostrophe is rendered as a little diamond, a square turned on its point, hovering above the name.

This grammatical flourish stands out, highlighting the possessive, which is meant to make the viewer think of ownership. Sam’s Club was originally named for the Walmart founder, Sam Walton, but the brand wants to make clear that the club belongs to all its members. Sam’s Club may be a sub-brand within the Walmart family, accounting for roughly 13% of sales, but it is nevertheless a major player in the retail landscape, generating $96 billion in revenue across 600 U.S. clubs. If it stood alone, it would rank 43 on the Fortune 500, ahead of Tesla.

Its members skew wealthier than Walmart’s, since buying in bulk requires both the storage and the disposable income to stock up. The retailer’s assortment now stretches beyond paper towels and pasta sauce to fresh produce, Australian lamb, saunas, and a fast-growing private label called Member’s Mark. Sam’s Club still trails Costco, the category’s giant, by a wide margin. (Costco generated $196 billion in U.S. net sales last year.) But it is growing, and has a new chief executive, Latriece Watkins , who spent two decades at Walmart, most recently as chief merchant, before taking the top job at Sam’s Club in February 2026.

In addition to the rebrand, the company has committed to remodeling all Sam’s Club locations and opening 30 new clubs over the next decade. [Photo: Sam’s Club] A new brand for a new demographic The Sam’s Club rebrand is a response to the changing demographic of customers coming to the store. “Over half of our new customers every year are Gen Z and millennial,” says Jeff Jenkins, the brand’s head of marketing .

“They’re a younger, more digital cohort that are starting to have families.” In her recent address to Sam’s Club employees during Walmart’s annual Associates Week celebration, Watkins framed the makeover as a way to emphasize the brand’s main message. “A store says, ‘Come shop here.’ But a club—a club says, ‘Come join us,'” she told the room in an auditorium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. “Members don’t just shop here, they shape what happens here.” For instance, Watkins explained, more than 150,000 members now cocreate Member’s Mark products, providing feedback and voting on which items should make it into the assortment.

Article truncated for readability. Read the full piece →

The rebranding of Sam's Club, a major player in retail, is significant for the industry, particularly with its focus on appealing to younger consumers, while the distinctive apostrophe design adds a unique twist that may inspire other brands.