Sam’s Club

Made the mistake of forgetting my contacts at home when I drove up here for the weekend. Missy in the optical center was such a life center and was so incredibly helpful! Definitely will be going back.

Sam’s– University.
I have been a Sam’s Club member for likely most of 10 years. During this time, I always felt like that it wasn’t necessarily a terrific bargain place to shop, but simply a matter of having a different variety of merchandise offered, occasionally at attractive pricing.
Having recently been offered a bargain (practically free) deal on a BJ’s Warehouse Club membership, I begin to shop and compare prices there with Sam’s. All things considered, I felt like the better bargain was at BJ’s and I like their mix of merchandise better.
Accordingly, I made the decision to allow my Sam’s Club card to expire December 21^st, 2015.
Before my Sam’s Club membership expired, I did purchase several Christmas presents there for this Christmas season. Unfortunately, one of these items required a return for an even exchange. On December 26^th, I went to this location of Sam’s to attempt this transaction (again, an even exchange).
On arrival at the service desk, and after a brief explanation, we was told that it was impossible to return this merchandise because I did not have a valid membership card any longer.
One can only imagine my frustration and disbelief on hearing this ridiculous answer. What would the recipient of a gift who never had been to a Sam’s Club before do if the gift required an exchange?
I quickly advised the associate this was totally unacceptable and bring a manager immediately. His reply was he just works here and that’s what he had been told the policy was. I replied I did not care what the policy was, that it was an extremely poor business practice. I again insisted on speaking to a member of management.
The associate then walked away to the opposite end of the counter where another person was working. It appeared he briefly explained the situation. After some delay, this person (later said to be the manager on duty) had some sort of short reply without showing any possible interest in the situation. Apparently his task at hand of laminating and trimming signs was more important than dealing with a customer service issue. Before the return of the associate, he hurriedly left without acknowledging our existence.
The associate returned and advised us that we would be able to make the exchange by using the store card for the transaction.
We then went back into the store, found our alternate merchandise, brought it back to the counter for the exchange.
Another associate handled the actual exchange transaction. There was some confusion about the UPC codes on both the incoming and outgoing items. Quite frankly, it was not a very impressive sight after hearing such a debacle as we had previously heard.
My point in this Unilocal!review is not one of discussing our continuing to do business with Sam’s Club, as my decision had already been made.
Our observation is — by all outward appearances– Sam’s Club believes they simply have too much business. More business than they wish to handle.
During the entire experience here, no one ever came and inquired if we would like to renew the membership. And certainly no one attempted to make me want to continue to do business there.
So I believe it best for all concerned for me to be very helpful and not be in the way of those customers who Sam’s Club apparently may value.
It certainly was not me.
Think about this carefully before you invest that $ 45 or $ 100 in a membership.

I ordered an item online since I don’t have a membership myself — if you use someone else’s online you can order the item and pick it up. I used my parents’ membership/​online account to get what I needed.
Upon entering the store, I headed over to the service desk to pick up my item. When I walked up everyone was busy with customers. When I finally got up there, the girl who was helping me had a little bit of trouble using the electronic equipment needed to finish the order. It was a tablet not the register which I thought was weird anyways. I had to sign electronically on the tablet and on a paper. Then, the girl had to leave and go to another location to get the item. Overall, the process was less than smooth. It was actually painfully slow. If the process had been a little bit smoother, I would probably have used this feature more often.

This location of Sam’s is okay. Visited on a Saturday around noon to pick up an order that had been placed and paid for online. It took no more than 10 minutes for my order to be wheeled up front. I thought I was going to be in and out in a reasonable time. Long story short, it took 35 additional minutes to get a receipt. Normally, I would’ve just left, but the order wasn’t for me so I needed the receipt. The manager (?) explained that they had delays because there was a new system. After I asked for some sort of compensation, he gave me a $ 10 gift card. A little fine tuning and they’ll be fine. Good
P. S. Went back the next day and picked up a cake, which was pretty good. They use a nice whipped cream icing.

3.5 stars
You know you got problems when you belong to more than one wholesale club. Oh woe is me.
I like Sam’s club because it is never crowded, I can get in and out quickly. What I really love is the self service lines because when you have just a few items, these really are a god send.
Two things I come to Sam’s club for religiously: 4 gallon water bottles for my water dispenser and the Blue Bell Ice Cream.
And most recently after Christmas they had markdowns on a lot of Christmas stuff including toys. An item my son kept asking for when we would go there was this TMNT bus but it was almost $ 40 and I was not going to pay that. Well after the holidays, I found it marked down to $ 7. So while I don’t do most of my bulk shopping at Sam’s Club, they do have great deals here.

I have had a few unfortunate events here.
I went to get dog food and kibble spilled out of the bag below the one I grabbed. Kibble got into my shoes and crushed under my feet.
I got my obligatory hot dog (I can’t resist) and on my last visit the bun was hard. It was scratch your nails on it and little dust particles came off — no ripping of soft dough chunks.
The vending machine for free samples was broken the last two times I went.
On the plus side: I love weekends when they have all the samples out. I also like the seasonal items where vendors come in to pitch limited availability items. That is where I got my pierogi and piña colada mix (on two separate occasions).
My last visit they ran out of shopping carts. I am not kidding — this is no joke. THEY RAN OUT OF SHOPPING CARTS! I don’t understand how you can be so lax as to let your supply of shopping carts get bunched up in the parking lot and leave people in a bulk warehouse store with no means to pile on all the stuff we are buying. You can’t sell 500 rolls of toilet paper at a time and expect me to carry it. Same goes for 50lbs of dog food.
Sometimes you wonder if anyone is actually working there. You know they are because even with no carts they have two people checking receipts. It is so important that you look at me for one second and decide to profile me and then just flick your wrist to put some highlighter on my receipt. I have TSA flashbacks of this nonsense.
If you have a nice white person you should let them walk your goods out for you — they don’t even look at the receipt and marker it off and say have a nice day.

Sam’s, my go to store for snacks, awesome find s, and bulk items! The prices are pretty good. I get certain things and I get out, before I spend unnecessary money. That is very easy to do! Its kind of like a larger Walmart, and a foodies paradise! If you haven’t been. GO NOW! ENJOY!
Oh, by the way, their pizza is delicious at the hot bar, up front, and they sell whole pizzas hot at the bar, and slices. In the deli area in the back, they sell the same whole pizzas, except they are cold.

Horrible management Drew (night manager) was very unprofessional with a refund I needed. After spending over 10,000 $ on flooring and a new TV entertainment center they gave me a hard time over a 50 $ refund. What a joke. I canceled my membership and they lost a customer for life. Way to keep business Drew. You may have saved the store 50 $ but you lost a customer for life. I’m sure the upper management team would not agree with your business decision on this one.
store at
Sam’s Club
8909 JW Clay Blvd, Charlotte, NC

Sams club… I have to say they won me over with a free membership, but I’m not a big fan of this location. The parking spaces are small, its hard to find parking, and it takes too long to make it through the check out line. There is nothing convienient about this place! They do happen to have everything that I need in bulk and I love their veggie section.
The food at the café definitely made up for the long lines and difficulty parking, but there was also a long line there! I chose to go on a sunday and this may have a lot to do with the troubles that I experienced. The after church crowd is ravenous! All in all they have what is promised… bulk items at a reasonable price. I will continue to shop at this establishment, but maybe next time I’ll choose a different day.

There’s only one Sams on the Northside and whenever you go in there on a Sunday, it’s going to be crowded. With that being accepted it took me at least 20 — 30 min to get thru check out and out the door.
They do have the best Cinnamon pretzels, however, there’s usually always just 1 person working or taking orders in the café. I mean it is super busy after church, so I wish they would have more people working there. Plus a lot of people get the large pizzas (which are comparable to delivery pizza or frozen store bought) to take home, but still only 1 worker.
Also, they don’t accept all major credit cards, which is odd. Of course, I will keep going because there’s not another closer. However, BJ’s is worth a trip too.

Being that this is the closest club to my location, I do shop here regularly. I enjoy shopping at Sam’s and get good deals on numerous items. The fruit is especially noteworthy as it is fresh and typically sold in family-​sized portions. On my latest visit, I went to pick up a cake. I ordered the cake a few days ago then called the day before pickup to confirm the order. When I saw the cake, the word Toastmasters was spelled Toast’s Masters and the club number was incorrect. I requested it be fixed, with little time to spare, and shopped around to give them ample time to fix the errors. Upon my return, the box was placed in an awkward location where it could have been easily knocked over. The club number was corrected but the name was not. I stopped by customer service to voice my concerns and was referred to the bakery manager but I needed to get back to the office with the cake. #Disappointed
STRONG SUGGESTION: Place your bakery orders in the store and visually review the paperwork to ensure the wording is correct.

This is my local/​nearest sam’s club so I been going to this location for almost 8 years now.
The folks who work in tire department seems pretty serious but they are very upfront, you just need to talk to them. He told me once that I need a wheel alignment for my car so I asked him do you know a place where I can get it now and he sent me to this place where they had the lowest price ($ 40) for 4 wheel alignment and I was out in about 30 mins.
I used to own a Café and they always took really good care of me (even my friends). I used to do a «fax-​n-​pull» and they always keep my order ready for me so that all I have to do is get in, pay for it and I am out. The lady who used to do the fax-​n-​pull for me, asked me to call her when I leave to pick up my items so that she would bring all my frozen items up front right before I get there that way they stay fresh. Even the store manager was very nice, he even gave me his cell # so that I can call him if I ever had any issues.

While the Sam’s in Matthews holds a special place for us because of Pakman, the Sam’s in the University is a little different — I’m not sure I’ll understand why every Sam’s has just a slightly different layout, but it really gets annoying.
Some stores you can go into and it’s like each one is identical. Not Sam’s. When you walk into Sam’s, it’s like you’re in a different store. Sure, it’s a warehouse, but they each have their own unique personality, and the University store has plenty.
The staff here just aren’t as friendly as the ones in Matthews, so if you’re going to just browse, do it in Matthews — though you can certainly browse, it just doesn’t have the same cozy feel.