Sam’s Club’s partners with parent Walmart on supply chain initiatives

In a new interview with Yahoo Finance anchor Alexis Christoforous, Sam's Club CEO Kathryn McLay talks about navigating supply-chain issues and stymying inflation in costs across their products.

Video transcript

Yeah, I mean, this is a hot topic for every retailer, I think, right now. So as I said before, all of our Halloween has hit and has already sold strong, and our Christmas product has all been shipped and it's either here or on its way and imminent. And so we're feeling really confident about our lead into Christmas.

I think we have the privilege in Sam's Club of leveraging Walmart's supply chain as well, and you know, I think they've spoken quite publicly about how they've gone out and charted some ships and vessels to ensure that they could get surety of supply. And so we get to partner in that, which is really a great benefit for our Sam's Club members.

- I think you're referencing that Walmart has now brought on its own ships to try to get supply to the stores, and I'd imagine as the parent company, Walmart being Sam's Club's parent company, you're able to participate in that.

KATHRYN MCCLAY: That's exactly right. Yeah. So we partner with them around a lot of our supply chain initiatives, and there's been a lot of work put in place to make sure that we're pulling forward orders and we're making sure that we're getting that inventory into the Club so that we can serve members how they want to shop.

- Now, in terms of pricing, you talked about having some leverage because the stores are so big, both yourself and Walmart, but we are seeing inflation creep up in every corner of our economy. Folks are paying more for everyday household items, food items. What are you seeing in your stores right now in terms of passing those higher costs along to consumers?

KATHRYN MCCLAY: Yeah, this is such an important topic, Alexis., right now. We have been working actively with our supply community over the last-- it feels like it's been about six months now, in really looking at how do we handle inflation. So because members pay to shop with us, we don't want to be a pass-through.

We want to work with our suppliers to see how we can mitigate it and how we can absorb it, and then at the last instance, what do we need to pass through into price? So we know that members come to us because they expect disruptive prices, so we have worked really hard with our supplier community to do as much absorbing and mitigating as we possibly can.