Scan & Go — Sam's Club
From a mobile checkout concept I pitched at TCS to wireframing Sam’s Club’s Scan & Go, the in-app feature that lets members scan, pay and skip the checkout line.
ROLE:
Hands-on UX designer
CLIENT:
Sam's Club · Retail
TIMELINE:
TOOLS:
Axure RP (original) · later rebuilt in Figma with a component library and tokens
The concept: myBudgetShopper
TCS leadership asked our eight-person design team, based across the street from Walmart’s home office, to pitch new mobile app ideas for Walmart. My pitch was myBudgetShopper: skip the checkout line by turning the phone into the register.
The idea combined technology people already carried:
1. GPS detects which store you’re in and loads that store’s inventory and prices.
2. The phone camera scans each item’s UPC barcode to build your cart as you shop.
3. A linked payment method in your profile lets you check out on the phone.
It wasn’t a formal client request, so I kept it brand-neutral. Shoppers picked their grocery chain, and the app worked across retailers.
From concept to Scan & Go
TCS shared our team’s ideas with Walmart. Later, Sam’s Club began building a scan-and-pay checkout feature and asked me to join its design team. We were told the pitches were for Walmart; I learned afterward that the concept had gone to Sam’s Club.
On the project I worked hands-on alongside three to four Sam’s Club designers. Each of us owned a set of screens, which we wireframed and then took through workshops with the client. The pace was fast: about four months from start to handoff.
Key design decisions
A feature, not a separate app. My concept was a standalone app. Sam’s Club chose to build Scan & Go into its existing app. That gave members one app to manage, and it could reuse the membership, sign-in and payment details they already had.
Sign-in and location before anything else. Scanning only works if the app knows exactly which club you’re standing in, because that’s where it gets inventory and prices. Making login and location services required up front meant every scan matched the right club’s data. The same location data also served club-specific information such as fuel prices.
Designing for the exit. Members leave without going through a register, so the flow ended with a digital receipt shown on the phone at the door.
Concept vs. shipped
Almost every detail changed between my pitch and the final product. The core idea stayed the same: scan with your phone, pay in the app, skip the line.
The lesson: a concept’s job is to get the right people saying yes to the problem. The product gets shaped afterward by the business, the brand and the realities of the store.
| Aspect | myBudgetShopper (concept) | Scan & Go (shipped) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Any grocery chain, chosen by the shopper | Sam's Club only |
| Form | Standalone app | Feature inside the Sam's Club app |
| Store detection | GPS picks the store | Required sign-in + location services identify the club |
| Extras | — | Club-specific data such as fuel pricing |
| Exit | Not defined | Digital receipt shown at the door |
Outcome: shipped, and still in members' hands
Sam’s Club launched Scan & Go in its clubs in 2016 (Walmart, Sept. 2020). By 2024, about one in three Sam’s Club members used it regularly (Retail Dive, Mar. 2024).
The feature has kept evolving since launch. Exit checks at the door, for example, now include scanning the phone receipt and spot-checking items in the cart. The core framework our team designed is still recognizable in the app today.
I rolled off after handing off the wireframes, so I don’t have Sam’s Club’s internal launch metrics. The public figures above describe the feature’s reach, not my individual impact.
Reflection
This project taught me to hold ideas loosely. My concept was multi-retailer and standalone; what shipped was Sam’s Club-only and built into an existing app. Both changes made it a better product for Sam’s Club members. The value of a concept is that it gets a problem worth solving in front of the people who can make it real.
It also showed me how quickly a team can move when each designer owns a clear set of screens. Four months from start to handoff worked because every one of us knew exactly what we were responsible for.