BJ's Wholesale Club plans Texas debut with multiple DFW stores

[grocerywatcher]

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... orney.html

There have been 4 confirmed stores thus far:

*Fort Worth
*Grand Prairie
*Forney
*Waxahachie

All set to open in 2026.

They're also eyeing a location in Allen, but are struggling to get approval for rezoning.

BJ's entrance will also make DFW's already uber-competitive grocery war even more competitive between H-E-B's aggressive expansion also taking place and Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons (Tom Thumb) and Costco all continuing to open new stores.

[storewanderer]

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... orney.html

There have been 4 confirmed stores thus far:

*Fort Worth
*Grand Prairie
*Forney
*Waxahachie

All set to open in 2026.

They're also eyeing a location in Allen, but are struggling to get approval for rezoning.

BJ's entrance will also make DFW's already uber-competitive grocery war even more competitive between H-E-B's aggressive expansion also taking place and Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons (Tom Thumb) and Costco all continuing to open new stores.

I didn't see this coming.

I am not sure how well they will do.

[arizonaguy]

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... orney.html

There have been 4 confirmed stores thus far:

*Fort Worth
*Grand Prairie
*Forney
*Waxahachie

All set to open in 2026.

They're also eyeing a location in Allen, but are struggling to get approval for rezoning.

BJ's entrance will also make DFW's already uber-competitive grocery war even more competitive between H-E-B's aggressive expansion also taking place and Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons (Tom Thumb) and Costco all continuing to open new stores.

I didn't see this coming.

I am not sure how well they will do.

How have they done in the other markets that they've recently expanded to such as Michigan?

It seems like they have a WinCo like strategy to expansion where they expand to multiple locations at the same time and then wait a while to see if the market materializes.

[HoustonRetail]

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... orney.html

There have been 4 confirmed stores thus far:

*Fort Worth
*Grand Prairie
*Forney
*Waxahachie

All set to open in 2026.

They're also eyeing a location in Allen, but are struggling to get approval for rezoning.

BJ's entrance will also make DFW's already uber-competitive grocery war even more competitive between H-E-B's aggressive expansion also taking place and Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons (Tom Thumb) and Costco all continuing to open new stores.

Wow, that's interesting. I can see why DFW would be a good target for BJ's. Sam's has long been king in Texas, basically since the concept was developed. They still have a stranglehold on urban warehouse stores within the major cities and have been good about following upper-middle-class suburb trends for years.

However, they stopped building new stores here in 2018. The final one was a concept Sam's Club Go small format store. After the store in Grapevine was damaged in the 2022 tornado outbreak, there was talk about potentially just closing it for good. Costco has tried to pick up where Sam's left off but doesn't build at a fast enough pace. Only the Grand Prarie location will have direct competition from Sam's.

While the wholesale competition aspect will favor BJ's for these locations, the real determiner will be price. HEB will especially try to undercut the competition.

[pseudo3d]

What does BJ's really have to offer that's different? Costco seems to be popular as they have larger stores (generally) than Sam's, an interesting food mix, a cult following snack bar, and a few other things. (I think they do clothing too, which Sam's doesn't...though it's been a while since I visited a Sam's).

I've heard Sam's as a whole has been getting better at what it does, but unlike typical discount stores, all of these have membership fees and it gets expensive to shop around.

[retailfanmitchell019]

I didn't see this coming.

I am not sure how well they will do.

BJ’s has had a trans-Appalachian expansion strategy in the past decade: they’ve entered Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. These Texas stores would be their first stores west of the Mississippi River.

I thought BJ’s would enter Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, or New Orleans before DFW. I suspect they have their eyes on those places next. Perhaps Minneapolis/St. Paul is in the expansion cards too…

[storewanderer]

What does BJ's really have to offer that's different? Costco seems to be popular as they have larger stores (generally) than Sam's, an interesting food mix, a cult following snack bar, and a few other things. (I think they do clothing too, which Sam's doesn't...though it's been a while since I visited a Sam's).

I've heard Sam's as a whole has been getting better at what it does, but unlike typical discount stores, all of these have membership fees and it gets expensive to shop around.

Sam's has clothing. Lots of it actually. More than Costco.

BJ's must see this weakness where Costco is not very strong in Texas and thinks they can swoop in.

I wonder if we will now see BJ's, Costco, and Sam's suddenly start mass expansion in Dallas metroplex.

Meanwhile HEB will keep doing its thing... probably undercut all of them on price...

[grocerywatcher]

What does BJ's really have to offer that's different? Costco seems to be popular as they have larger stores (generally) than Sam's, an interesting food mix, a cult following snack bar, and a few other things. (I think they do clothing too, which Sam's doesn't...though it's been a while since I visited a Sam's).

I've heard Sam's as a whole has been getting better at what it does, but unlike typical discount stores, all of these have membership fees and it gets expensive to shop around.

Sam's has clothing. Lots of it actually. More than Costco.

BJ's must see this weakness where Costco is not very strong in Texas and thinks they can swoop in.

I wonder if we will now see BJ's, Costco, and Sam's suddenly start mass expansion in Dallas metroplex.

Meanwhile HEB will keep doing its thing... probably undercut all of them on price...

For now at least, both Sam's and Costco have some holes in DFW with respect to underserved areas.

Waxahachie is a notable example, located in a top 10 fastet growing county with over 200K residents, yet not a Warehouse club to be found and neither Sam's or Costco have indicated a desire to open stores there.

And if you look at the eastern suburbs (also amongst the top 10 fastest-growing counties, Kaufman & Rockwall), Sam's Club has not given any indication that they interested in opening stores there either.

Given the explosive economic and population growth rate, it could be as simple as BJ's seeing there's more than enough room for them to take a bite out of what is a very lucrative market.

[grocerywatcher]

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news ... orney.html

There have been 4 confirmed stores thus far:

*Fort Worth
*Grand Prairie
*Forney
*Waxahachie

All set to open in 2026.

They're also eyeing a location in Allen, but are struggling to get approval for rezoning.

BJ's entrance will also make DFW's already uber-competitive grocery war even more competitive between H-E-B's aggressive expansion also taking place and Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons (Tom Thumb) and Costco all continuing to open new stores.

I didn't see this coming.

I am not sure how well they will do.

How have they done in the other markets that they've recently expanded to such as Michigan?

It seems like they have a WinCo like strategy to expansion where they expand to multiple locations at the same time and then wait a while to see if the market materializes.

They look to be at 4 stores thus far spread across the Detroit area, which seems to be in line with the store count / coverage they have in similar-sized metros across the SE (Atlanta, Miami, etc.).

[arizonaguy]

I didn't see this coming.

I am not sure how well they will do.

How have they done in the other markets that they've recently expanded to such as Michigan?

It seems like they have a WinCo like strategy to expansion where they expand to multiple locations at the same time and then wait a while to see if the market materializes.

They look to be at 4 stores thus far spread across the Detroit area, which seems to be in line with the store count / coverage they have in similar-sized metros across the SE (Atlanta, Miami, etc.).

That's a different strategy than Sam's and Costco.

I'm pretty sure Costco has 11 locations (counting Ann Arbor but excluding Flint) and Sam's has 9 locations in Metro Detroit (again counting Ann Arbor but excluding flint).

BJ's probably will never pass Costco or Sam's in store count in any of these new markets.