Sam's Club Rapid Innovation - Wine
Client
Sam's Club
Year
Spring 2022
Location
Dallas, Tx
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My team and I were tasked with creating “the Next Big Idea” for the Wine Department. Of the. thirty-five ideas I came up with, seven were chosen by my group to review internally and three were picked to present to the Director of Innovation at Sam’s Club.
STAR
Situation
After doing extensive research, interviews, design thinking activities, and also receiving and applying the feedback received from the Director of Innovation, Jonathan Saffian, I came up with five pain points and seven ideas that I believe can help push Sam’s Club above their Competitors.
Tasks
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In-Store observations using the Six Looking Glasses exercise
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Identified five pain points ​
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Business: Businesses with a desire to give gifts in the form of wine lack support in making the intricate process efficient and personal.
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- Convenience: A problem I identified from our interviews is the time it takes people to shop for wine. People do not want to waste time searching for products.
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- Competitive Advantage: The main goal of this semester is to find/create innovative ideas to put Sam’s club above all other competitors.
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Categorization: Compared to other wine/liquor stores, Sam’s Club has minimal categorization of their Wine. A lack of categorization can increase confusion, time spent searching, and decrease product satisfaction.
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Lack of Wine Knowledge: A big amount of wine shoppers have minimal knowledge of wine but are interested in learning more.
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Researched and surveyed seven wine shoppers
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Created Personas for Wine Shoppers​
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Lead the Opportunities/ How might We’s Section of the Journey Map
Activities
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Used the Journey Map to evaluate pain points
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Conducted weekly meetings with our stakeholders to gather feedback and validation
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Conducted weekly one-hour meetings with our team
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Created four problem statements based on identified pain points​
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Asked the Five Whys to find the root cause of the problems
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Used six thinking hats method to evaluate solutions
Results
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Received feedback from the Director of Innovation for Sam’s Club, Jonathan Saffian and Faculty
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Our team was given the opportunity to present our idea to Sam’s Club’s Product Managers
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Received feedback and validation from my peers and team
1. Businesses Can Thrive Using Sam’s Club to Send Wine Gifts
Pain Point: Process is inefficient and unpersonal for businesses with a desire to give gifts in the form of wine.
Insights: How Might We reduce the number of steps in preparing a gift in the form of wine for business owners?
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SnappyGifts: A gifting platform that allows users to customize and automate gifts for others. The gifts can be geared towards individuals or corporate employees and have a wide variety of gifts to choose from. Snappy Gifts can measure company metrics and organize gifts in advance based on their schedule. The platform also increases personalization by allowing the recipients to choose from a range of gifts. source
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"I love having the ability to give team members something THEY want, rather than more "junk" that, in the end, is just clutter and trash. Ensures that the company's money spent on recognition has value both to the Team Members and the company's efforts to say a genuine thank you to them." - Snappy Gift Customer Review
Solution: Use Sam’s Club to send Customized Boozy Boxes
Sam’s Club website would have a separate platform that allows businesses to integrate their business calendars and events with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to coordinate their wine gift for those occasions. The business would also have access to customize their gift boxes accordingly. Sam’s Club would receive notifications for upcoming gift boxes and would ask the client/employee if they would like to choose their wine or if they would like the store/company to choose for them.​
Who, What, Wow:
Companies that gift wine can utilize the Sam’s Club e-gift platform to increase employee retention by 41%, customer loyalty by 43%, and help employees feel more valued by 45%. source
This storyboard showcases the process:
Life is Busy
Customize your Gift
Choose Your Wine
Both Parties are Happy
Results: My idea was ranked at the top by my team and was the idea we ended up presenting to the Director of Innovation.
Feedback from the Director of Innovation: The Director of Innovation was impressed by our idea and even mentioned that he would give us the opportunity to present it in front of his product managers. He told us that all we needed to do next was to “paint the blue sky picture” by further validating our idea with data statistics that would show how effective this service would be for businesses.
2. Sam’s Club Opens Window-Shops for Quicker Wine Purchases
Pain Point: Shoppers want to choose the perfect wine in the most time-efficient way.
Insights: How Might We entice members to impulse shop our wines?
Solution: Place Kate Spade-like window shops instead of walk-in shops in locations with high foot traffic?
Who, What, Wow:
Customers who want to make a quick wine purchase without walking through the entire store can go to the Sam’s Club window shop and be more influenced to purchase a wine bottle by 24%. source
Window Shop Display:
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This is the view people would have of the store. They would be able to see all the wines Sam's Club offers.
The Screen Display:
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This is where people would
purchase their wine.
3. Self Checkouts in Wine Section with Facial Recognition
Pain Point: Through our interviews, we identified the long checkout lines at Sam’s Club. The Director of Innovation also mentioned this during one of our in-store visits.
Insights: How Might We reduce the waiting time in checkout lines for members that shop exclusively for wine?
Solution: Placing a Self-checkout box in the wine section with facial recognition.
Who, What, Wow:
Customers who want to make a quick wine purchase without walking through the entire store can go to the Sam’s Club wine self checkout and reduce their time by 7 minutes. source
This storyboard showcases the process:
You are running short on time and you see the checkout lines are long.
You skip the line with the self checkout kiosk.
You saved 7 minutes in the checkout line!
4. Sam’s Club Promotes Exclusive Wines of the Week
Pain Point: The main task given to us for this project by Sam’s Club was to create innovative ideas that would put Sam’s Club above all its competitors.
Insights: How Might We increase both customer engagement and members’ wine palettes?
Solution: Providing new wines that will only be sold for an exclusive time.
Who, What, Wow:
Sam’s Club could promote specific wines available for only an exclusive time to increase customer engagement and increase sales by 9%. source
Crumbl Cookies promoted their business to incredible success by selling a new set of cookie flavors for only a week. It had a 93% year-over-year growth. source
5. Sam’s Club could Promote their Member’s Mark Wines with Mini Bottle Samplers
Pain Point: Wine shoppers have minimal knowledge of wine which leads to low product satisfaction.
Insights: How Might We increase customers’ education about different wines to make accurate wine purchases?
Solution: Promoting Member’s Mark Wines with Mini Wine Bottle Samplers
Who, What, Wow:
Customers who want to make an accurate wine purchase can try the wine samplers before committing to the full bottle and be 5x more influenced to purchase a wine bottle. source
This storyboard showcases the process:
You don't know which wines to get.
You grab the 6 mini samplers to find your favorite wine.
You taste all of them and choose your favorites.
You buy the wine you KNOW you love.
6. Incorporating Wine Bottles into Wine Racks
Pain Point: In my in-store visits, I identified that Sam’s Club has minimal wine categorization compared to other wine/liquor retailers.
Insights: How Might We better categorize Sam’s Club’s wine displays to help customers find products faster and easier?
Solution: Incorporating Wine bottles into Wine Racks to Showcase both Products
Who, What, Wow:
Sam’s Club could benefit from a better-categorized wine section because changing enhancing the visibility of product signage had an average increase in sales and profits of about 10%. source
This showcases a more effective way for Sam's Club to store AND sell wine. People would be able to see how the wine is can be displayed if they buy both.
7. Sam’s Club Uses Out of Stock Detection Software
Pain Point: Pain Points: Out-of-stock indicators on the Sam’s Club website do not accurately represent inventory levels in physical stores.
Insights: How Might We decrease the time a product is out of stock on shelves?
Solution: Camera Sensors that Detect and Notify when Products are Out of Stock
Who, What, Wow:
If Sam’s Club reduces the time a product is left out of stock, then it could prevent about 4% of lost sales. source
This video showcases how the Out-of-Stock Detection works:
Thank You for Reading! Any Questions? Contact Me
Integration of Portfolio
Explanation of how all the areas of the PDA program integrate and compliment each other within the project. Overall understanding of learning and the program.
Project Management
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The implementation of Project Management Documents, such as the Project Brief, RACI, and Communication Plan, establishes the foundation for the project.
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The biggest project management skill practiced in this project was maintaining the communication and positive relationship with our stakeholders
Design Thinking
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With each idea developed, we developed storyboards to deliver a powerful message and story to the audience.
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With each idea developed, we wrote Who, What, Wows to create a compelling argument about why our idea would work or be successful.
Data Analysis
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Our Data Analysis skills were used to find a focus or direction from our findings in the beginning phases of our project. For example, it helped us identify the customer experience through the use of Journey Maps.
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The majority of our research and idea inspiration was found through the use of competitor analysis and market preference analysis.
External Links Used
