May 19, 2025
Contact: Sara Diedrich, diedrichs@missouri.edu
Photo by Sara Diedrich
When executives from Sam’s Club sought bold new ideas for enhancing their members’ in-store and digital shopping experience through their app, they didn’t look to the boardroom — they turned to the next generation of consumers and innovators: students at the Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business at the University of Missouri.
Tasked with the challenge in a retail marketing course, these students — many of whom grew up shopping alongside their parents in the membership-only warehouse — recently competed to bring fresh perspectives and impressive solutions that didn’t disappoint.
For the students, who worked in teams of four or five, it was the ultimate hands-on learning experience.
“Through this course, I was able to experience how everything I have learned here at Trulaske has prepared me for the success of a project like this,” said Alyvia Roath, a senior majoring in business administration with an emphasis in marketing. “I learned how to put into action all of the skills required for my degree, effectively pulling concepts from knowledge I have gained in my various marketing classes, as well as concepts from risk management and insurance courses.”
Roath was one of four students on the winning team whose innovative ideas impressed the panel of judges, including Patrick Shanks, BS BA ’94, regional vice president at Sam’s Club. All of the teams worked to create new ways to combine online and in-person elements to make the Sam’s Club shopping experience more flexible, personalized and convenient.
Each winning team member was awarded a Sam’s Club Plus membership.
Winning ideas
The team’s standout proposals included personalized seasonal and holiday-themed party packs and an AI-powered personal assistant named Walter. However, the idea that truly captured the judges’ attention was “Sam’s Smart Sampler” — a feature that would allow members to view a weekly in-store sampling schedule through the Sam’s Club app. Premium members could take it a step further by receiving quarterly, personalized sample boxes curated based on their preferences and purchase history.
“I love the idea of the samples,” said Shanks, who noted he plans to pitch some of the team’s ideas to company leadership. “You all did an amazing job.”
Greg Pulsifer, senior vice president of eCommerce at Sam’s Club, praised the students for offering a fresh perspective on the business and for backing up their pitch with data.
Competing student teams showcased a range of innovative ideas, including gamified shopping challenges, a refill kiosk for Member’s Mark products such as laundry detergent, a smart capacity meter that offers real-time store traffic updates through the app, a phone holder for the cart and an augmented reality (AR) assistant that uses pre-loaded shopping lists to generate optimized in-store routes, helping customers save time.
Making it real
Courtney Cothren, associate teaching professor of marketing at Trulaske, reached out to Shanks at Sam’s Club to propose the collaboration because she strongly believes in Trulaske’s tradition of providing students with valuable experiential learning opportunities.
“More than that, I think if students are doing projects for real companies, especially those that are leaders in their industries, it motivates them to do their best work,” she said. “They know that it's not just me looking at their projects, but executives from companies they know, love and may want to work at one day.”
For the students, the competition was an opportunity to push the boundaries and put their knowledge to the test.
“I really appreciated the creative freedom,” said Olivia Chanod, a junior majoring in marketing and a member of the winning team. “No idea was off-limits, which made the process exciting.”
Teamwork
Chanod enjoyed the in-store samples as a child shopping with her mother and pitched the idea of a sampler.
“We also recognized a gap — sometimes you walk in and have no idea what’s being sampled,” she said. “So, we added a curated sampling calendar for personalization. That evolved into Smart Sample Boxes, which not only create a sense of novelty but also present an opportunity for paid vendor placement and allow Sam’s to forecast product performance. This also brought the in-club sampling experience into the members’ homes. I hope this becomes a thing.”
John Costain, a junior majoring in accounting and a member of the winning team, said the project taught him the value of clear communication and the courage to speak up — even when it’s uncomfortable. Ultimately, he credited his team’s success to their willingness to be honest and collaborative.
“Being vocal with group members about what to add and remove is difficult, because you want everybody to be happy, but when there is a problem with the project, you have to take the necessary steps to ensure it is good,” he said. “Group projects can be difficult to do well on in college, but when everyone is trying to do well — it works.”
