Sam’s Club executives announced yesterday that they are opening up a Sam’s Club business center location (Houston) in July.

The goal here is to serve their small business customers by concentrating on bulk items such as office supplies, cleaning supplies, beverages, fresh food—basically anything needed by restaurants, offices, convenience stores, etc. The store will not carry clothing and apparel, recreation items, and certain other consumer items that are ordinarily found at regular Sam’s Club locations. The focus here is to be a one-stop shop focused explicitly on small business.

What Sam’s Club is really doing is testing this store as a concept. If the numbers look promising, you can rest assured that Sam’s Club business centers will start popping up throughout the country.

Sam’s Club’s opening of a business center is just another example of large companies shifting their focus toward small business during a weakening economy. These companies are placing big bets on small businesses to come through for them in the coming years.

Now I don’t know about you, but this excites me. I love Sam’s Club. Where else can you buy 20lbs. worth of hamburgers and a 73 x 25 inch, economy-size grill to cook them on? It’s genius! And it’s perfect for the upcoming company picnic.

With inflation jacking up prices in all aspects of life, it’s nice to see that large companies not only understand how hard it hits small business owners, but are also taking initiatives to alleviate some of the pain. Let’s hope that Sam’s Club business centers can do us another favor by opening up a few more check-out counters and saving us all a couple hours of waiting in line.

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