Sam's Club Helps Small Regional Labels Reach a National Audience

From Three Warehouses to a National Shelf

Doyenne is a new coffee bean brand from Onyx Coffee, a roaster based in Arkansas. For Onyx co-founder Andrea Allen, launching Doyenne - a brand built around women-led coffee producers - was about finding a distribution channel that could scale up quickly without lowering quality. Allen said the two brands work exclusively with beans that the Specialty Coffee Association scores in its excellent or outstanding range.

The coffee sold by Sam's Club tends to be commercial grade, while Doyenne is positioned as a more upscale option for members.

That upscale positioning was part of the test. Sam's Club needed to see whether warehouse members would accept a higher-priced specialty coffee before it committed to a wider rollout.

Last year, Sam's Club ran a test run with Doyenne in three warehouses in northwest Arkansas. The club-level demand signal convinced Sam's Club and Doyenne to take the coffee to more than 50 American locations, list it on samsclub.com, and arrange fast local fulfillment plus national shipping.

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According to the company, online sales of Doyenne almost doubled in the month after the coffee went live on its website. Close to 25 percent of digital orders currently go to ZIP codes whose local clubs don't stock Doyenne on the shelf. By the end of July, Sam's Club says its Doyenne bean sales for the year were close to 15 tons. Pulsifer added that Doyenne buyers come back for another bag more often than the average whole-bean shopper at Sam's Club.

Why a Big Store Wants Small Brands

Sam's Club aims to be the launchpad that turns carefully sourced regional brands into nationwide names. Wholesale shopping is mostly associated with stocking up on national labels at low prices, yet the stores also scatter a handful of local finds among the shelves. Now the Walmart-owned subsidiary is making those smaller selections available to online shoppers across the country.

Greg Pulsifer, Sam's Club's head of e-commerce, said, "We don't want to be the everything store to everyone. We want to be the curated store that you trust, and that's what keeps you coming back."

Historically, local products only sold in their region. Faster e-commerce and delivery changed that. "Historically, premier brands relied on location and physical environments," Pulsifer said. "In a digital world, those barriers are gone."

Andrea Allen, co-founder of Onyx Coffee, sees that shift in her own town. Her vet buys Doyenne at Sam's Club even though he would never walk into her cafe. "Not because he doesn't like it, but because that's not his space," she said.

A comparable trajectory, the company says, took Kize, a nutrition bar brand from Oklahoma City, from a local expo discovery by a Sam's Club buyer to club shelves and then to a nationwide online presence. The company said several up-and-coming labels are moving along that same path.

"Innovative brands can grow without compromising their identity, and it supports their mission. I think it's a really it's a really cool thing," Pulsifer said.

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