Sam's Club, the upscale members-only retail chain owned by the Fortune Global 500 company Walmart, is set to open its first outlet in Qingdao. [Photo/Qilu News Website]

Sam's Club, the high-end warehouse club chain of Walmart Inc, announced that it will open a store in Qingdao's Shibei district, according to a cooperation agreement inked at the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Hong Kong-Macao-Shandong Week and Shandong-Hong Kong Cooperation Exchange Conference, which kicked off in Hong Kong on May 27.

The Qingdao Sam's Club is the first Sam's Club store in Shandong. It will have approximately 20,000 square meters of shopping space across two above-ground levels, with two underground levels designated for a parking facility that can accommodate around 1,200 vehicles. In addition to the flagship store, six or more cloud warehouses will also be established in the city in its initial phase. Construction is expected to commence in the second half of this year and the store is expected to open to customers in 2026.

Sam's Club is a subsidiary of the Fortune Global 500 company Walmart and is a globally recognized large-scale warehouse club. Since its establishment in Shenzhen, Guangdong in 1996, Sam's Club has opened 48 stores across China in over 20 cities, with just four cities in Northern China - Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Dalian - hosting a total of seven Sam's Club locations.

In recent years, Shibei district has consistently prioritized expanding domestic demand, actively promoting consumption, and attracting more projects in the commercial trade sector. The new Sam's Club is an important part of Shibei district's efforts to develop new forms of consumption this year.

In the future, with Sam's Club and JD Mall as pioneers in new retail, Shibei district will reshape the development landscape of its commercial trade industry, driving the evolution and upgrade of Qingdao's commercial sector and establishing the city as an international hub for consumer activities.