From the July/August 2007 issue of Sporting Classics.
In 1961 a young furniture salesman from Chappell, Nebraska bought some fishing flies at a furniture show in Chicago with an eye for selling them. He ran an ad that read, “12 hand-tied flies for $1.” He got one response.
Thinking outside the box, Dick Cabela ran another ad: “Free Introductory Offer! 5 Hand-Tied Flies. . .25¢ Postage. . .Handling,” and sold out promptly. He and his wife, Mary, sent out each order from their kitchen table, along with a mimeographed catalogue of other outdoor items, and an empire was born.
Forty-three years later that mimeographed catalogue and kitchen table have evolved into eighteen retail stores (with twelve more opening soon), seventy-six different specialty catalogues, 120 million catalogue mailings each year, their own outfitting company, their own credit card, their own bank, their own website, three distribution centers, a real estate division, three customer relations centers, an outdoor magazine, two television shows and most recently, their debut as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.
There is, quite simply, nothing remotely like Cabela’s. It is the 800-pound gorilla of hunting, fishing and outdoor outfitters, and there is no outdoor-related product you can think of they don’t sell, from blaze orange caps to log cabins. Dip into their Master Catalogue or go to their website, and you’ll see what I mean.
But curiously enough for a mail-order company, it is the retail stores that will knock your socks off. If you haven’t been to one of Cabela’s stores, then you ain’t seen nothing yet.
It’s actually difficult to convey to the uninitiated the impact of one of their stores. To say it’s a Toys-R-Us for hunters and fishermen doesn’t even come close. Yes, you can buy anything you might need. You can buy anything you can dream of. You can even buy a bunch of stuff you didn’t know you needed and had never dreamt of.
The first time I went to the flagship store in Sidney, Nebraska, I was en route to South Dakota to go pheasant hunting, and I just stopped off to purchase an extra pair of wool socks. I came out four hours later and $500 poorer and counted both the time and the money well spent. But that doesn’t convey the magic of Cabela’s.
Each store is designed to be much more than just a place to purchase wool socks (or a dozen hand-tied flies). Part education center, part wildlife museum, each store is carefully designed to encourage the potential customer to wander around with his mouth open for hours, and perhaps, to come away a little wiser about the outdoors than he was before.
The centerpiece is a Conservation Mountain, where hundreds of museum-quality animals are shown in their natural habitat. The dioramas range from the Arctic to Africa and could put the Museum of Natural History to shame. Quite frankly, the quality of the mounts is second to none. Roughly three-fourths of the mounts in any given store are full-body. The mule deer, whitetail, Coues deer, elk and pronghorn shoulder-mounts that line the circumference of the store will make you hyperventilate. There are aquariums that showcase fish native to whatever part of the country that particular store is in. In addition to rows of factory firearms, there is a gun library where you can happily drool over rare and custom-made shotguns and rifles.
Cabela’s is probably the only place in the world where the gun inventory ranges from $100 to well over $100,000. Equally important, there are intelligent and educated staffers who can explain why that sidelock you are holding costs more than your pickup and only slightly less than your home. And if you need to recharge your batteries for more shopping, there are delis featuring regional favorites and wild game entrées.
If you’ve ever ordered anything from Cabela’s, and especially if you’ve ever had a problem with anything you ordered, you know they pride themselves on their service.
The last time I went to the flagship store in Sidney it was because my pickup broke down there. I made it to Sander’s garage, conveniently located just across the interstate from Cabela’s, where Rodger Sander told me my water pump had expired. He then went on to give me more bad news.
“Today is the opening day of deer season, so I’ve only got a few guys working. And whether we can fix it at all depends on if the auto parts store has a water pump in stock.”
“What happens if they don’t?”
“You’ll be here ’til Monday when I can send a guy to North Platte to get one.”
Rodger and I walked inside, and while he called the auto parts store, I had a brief conversation with the Almighty during which I promised, among other things, to buy a new truck just as soon as I could afford it. Evidently He was on duty and found my offer both cogent and reasonable because after a moment Rodger looked
up from his desk.
“I tried to get you a rebuilt pump, but they’ve only got one and it’s brand new. You want it?”
If he had told me it was the platinum-plated Franklin Mint collector’s edition, personally autographed by all living presidents, I would have taken it.
I then took Liberty, my wildly eccentric Pudelpointer, and walked over to Cabela’s to kill some time.
A young lady tall enough to play for the Lakers, in a Cabela’s company shirt, was greeting customers, and she stopped us
at the door.
“I’m sorry, we can’t allow dogs in, but there’s a kennel where you can leave him.”
I walked over to the kennel, but every run was full, so I went back to the store and sat on a bench in the sun. The tall young lady came out and asked what was wrong. When I explained about the runs, she immediately reached for Liberty’s leash.
“Here, I’ll walk him around the pond and you go on in. When a run frees up, I’ll put him in the kennel and hang his leash on the gate. So when you’re done, either look for us out here or look for him in the kennel.”
As it happened, none of the runs freed up, so when I staggered out over an hour later, and another $500 poorer, she and Liberty were sitting in the sun, having a quiet conversation.
Name a store in New York or LA where that could happen. That’s Cabela’s. +++