Sam's Club is adding two California warehouses in 2026, bringing its expansion strategy into one of the country's most competitive club markets. The planned locations are in Lathrop and Visalia, according to The Desert Sun and a July update from USA Today. The California sites join openings planned in Tennessee and Texas.
A separate USA Today overview described four calendar-year openings across those states. Store counts can vary depending on whether a company uses calendar or fiscal timing, so operators should focus on the pattern rather than inflate the number: Sam's is expanding deliberately, not flooding the map. The Walmart newsroom remains the primary channel for final opening announcements and format details.
California is a hard but logical test
Lathrop and Visalia give Sam's access to growing Central Valley trade areas where households make larger stock-up trips and can be underserved by existing warehouse coverage. Those characteristics fit the club model, but California also brings high occupancy and labor costs plus a deeply established Costco presence. A new club has to win memberships, trips, and renewal—not just opening-week traffic.
The format has also changed. Sam's increasingly treats the warehouse as a digitally enabled fulfillment and membership hub, with app-based shopping, pickup, delivery, and a growing emphasis on friction reduction. New stores can be designed around those workflows instead of retrofitting decades-old boxes. That can improve labor deployment and make the membership more useful between traditional stock-up trips.
The metric is member economics
A warehouse opening is attractive because membership income can support sharp merchandise pricing, but only when acquisition costs, renewal, and visit frequency work together. The California stores will need a compelling fresh and private-brand offer, strong fuel and convenience economics where applicable, and enough digital adoption to distinguish Sam's from both Costco and conventional grocers.
Competitors should watch local price gaps, traffic patterns, and category mix around the openings. Grocers may feel pressure in bulk pantry, beverage, meat, and household essentials; general merchants may see larger-ticket seasonal and home purchases shift. But the impact will be local before it is statewide.
For Sam's, this is measured infill with strategic weight. If Lathrop and Visalia ramp efficiently, they can support more Western expansion. If they require sustained discounts or struggle to convert trial into renewals, the company will have learned that white space on a map is not the same thing as an open membership market.