The Best (And Worst) Days To Shop At Sam's Club

While Sam's Club and Costco have their differences, they are at least alike in one specific way: They can be a real bear to shop in on specific days. And at Sam's, especially if you hate crowds, you might have to pump yourself up for shopping — it's an easily overstimulated person's nightmare, with huge carts blocking aisles, screaming kids, and check-out aisles that, on the busiest days, can stretch for what seems like miles (use the Scan and Go option in the app to bypass all that noise). But if you can try and shop on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, you just might be able to avoid all of that.

That's because most Sam's Clubs — indeed, most retailers in general — are a lot less busy on weekdays than they are on weekends. However, on Mondays, you might still see crowds of people looking to stock up for the week ahead, and on Thursdays and Fridays, the weekend shoppers can start to accumulate, especially if it's a long or holiday weekend. Tuesday and Wednesday hit that sweet spot where the crowds should have thinned enough so that you're not bumping into other carts in clogged aisles.

If there is any day you want to avoid in order to miss the masses (of people), it's definitely Saturday, and perhaps also Sunday. These weekend days are notoriously busy times at Sam's Club — though you can do online shopping and curbside pick-up if those are your only free days.

Of course, the time of day that you head to Sam's Club matters, too, if you're looking to enjoy a trip where you have lots of personal space. And for that, you'll want to try to get there as soon as the doors open, typically at 10 in the morning. However, if you happen to be a Plus member, you actually get two hours of access before the store opens to the general public, so you can take advantage of even fewer shoppers. As it happens, it pays to get there early since employees put out fresh items in the morning, and if certain items are nearing their sell-by date, employees will likewise mark those prices down before opening (a decent substitute for the warehouse chain not taking coupons).

If you work a 9 to 5, though, and you can't take off work just to get your crowd-free Sam's Club shopping done every week, you're in luck. Just try your store a few hours before closing on weekdays. My own anecdotal experience bears this out; I recently went to my local Sam's Club on a Tuesday evening around 6:00 p.m. (the club closes at 8 p.m.), and I've never seen the parking lot so empty. It was a dream walking through the store and running into exactly no one.