Sam’s Club turning shuttered store into e-commerce fulfillment center

Sam’s Club is turning a suburban store it closed earlier this year into a Midwest e-commerce fulfillment center.

The distribution hub in south suburban Matteson will be Walmart-owned chain’s second distribution hub in the United States, after a Memphis location that opened in June in another shuttered Sam’s Club store, according to the Daily Southtown.

The center will be a regional hub for deliveries of items bought online by Sam’s Club members within several hundred miles of Chicago, a Sam’s Club spokesperson said.

Work on converting the store at 21500 South Cicero Avenue will start next month, with a tentative plan to have it operating by the end of this year, the spokesperson said. The store was among 60 Sam’s Club locations Walmart closed earlier this year.

In announcing the Memphis center, Sam’s Club said it was ramping up efforts to bolster online sales, such as offering free shipping on most products purchased online for Sam’s Club Plus members.

Retail landlords have pursued different strategies for filling vacant big-box stores, such as dividing them into smaller spaces, bringing in hotels and apartments to diversify properties, and targeting fitness centers and entertainment tenants that aren’t as susceptible to e-commerce pressures.

Sam’s strategy to put the two stores back into play within the e-commerce system could be yet another strategy, turning what could be an albatross in the stressed retail market into a desirable asset: The Chicago-area industrial market has been on fire, and turning vacant big-boxes into warehouses and distribution centers could give industrial investors another option. [Daily Southtown] — John O’Brien