New Western Washington Cabela's

[308Mike]

My experience pretty much mirrors Greg's.

The one Dick's I've been to seems mostly like the usual urban "sporting goods store", which actually means "clothes to wear while hitting on the hottie at the gym, plus a couple of tennis racquets and hockey sticks- store".

Dick's up in Overland Park, KS is full of pastel-colored sweat suits that will never feel even a hint of perspiration. The BMW/Lexus ratio to pickup trucks in the parking lot is on the order of 50:1. The guns and ammo section is in a small room in a back corner of the store. My local pawn shop has more ammo than Dick's. It appears Dick's has a policy of appealing to the local "market", which in Overland Park is GFWs.

You mean a place which is geared COMPLETELY to making money and not at ALL interested in the surrounding issues such as RKBA, Open Spaces, Wildlife Conservation, Wild River conservation, protecting sportsman's interests, protecting their customer base (especially when one base conflicts with another base and they're not taking a stand to alienate one customer base against the other) - after all, it's ALL ABOUT MONEY TO THEM.

I'm telling ya', eventually they are going to wind up having one customer base face off against the other. And while they may initially side with the money from the soccer-moms, that money and those funds will QUICKLY evaporate, and yet they have NO IDEA about their customer base and how they might respond once the soccer-mom purchases dries up and their revenue start dropping dramatically. And when they put sales on and NOBODY responds to their sales and they can't figure out why, MAYBE SOMEONE WITH A BRAIN might remember how they screwed over those who wanted their support and were abandoned to get a few political dollars instead of adhering to principals. As they head towards bankruptcy, they'll decry the abandonment of the sportsmen and conservationists who they've sold equipment and supplies to for YEARS. YET these same morons can't see how they got there because they've abandoned their CORE customer base for the quick and easy dollar. Once again, the damned quarterly accountants have driven ANOTHER company into bankruptcy against the advice of their own charter and that of their company's founders.

The sad part is that they STILL don't understand what has happened and why. LIFE doesn't operate on a quarterly balance sheet, and these turds being churned out by all the latest schools think they have all the answers, and yet they are turning successful companies into CRAP at an astounding rate and they can't figure out WHY.

I'll stop now - as usual:

YMMV

[NVGdude]

Erm...it's by the new football stadium and across from the hockey stadium and that big shopping district. That's not anywhere near downtown Phoenix.

Dude, when you live in Queen Creek, Glendale is "downtown Phoenix"

[HTRN]

Dicks sucks, at least compared to what it replaced. Galyans was a great store.

[HTRN]

Yeah, Galyans was like a "Cabela's lite". Dicks on the other hand sells clothes, some fishing stuff, some hunting stuff, some camping stuff, and alot of crap that can be had in Modells.

[NVGdude]

Dick's is just a big Sports Authority. In other words: pretty useless.

[Jeffro]

I stopped in and checked out the Cablela's in Rapid City, SD the other day. First off - they have truck parking, which was a win for me. I can understand why their prices are higher - just look at the inventory and the huge expense of the [strike]building[/strike] shrine itself.

I managed to tear myself out of the stupor and leave after about two hours. I am still suffering from sensory overload, and all I looked at were guns, knives, reloading supplies and optics. I left with a bag of sugar free gummy bears and my budget counted itself lucky.

[cu74]

I stopped in and checked out the Cablela's in Rapid City, SD the other day. First off - they have truck parking, which was a win for me. I can understand why their prices are higher - just look at the inventory and the huge expense of the [strike]building[/strike] shrine itself.

I managed to tear myself out of the stupor and leave after about two hours. I am still suffering from sensory overload, and all I looked at were guns, knives, reloading supplies and optics. I left with a bag of sugar free gummy bears and my budget counted itself lucky.

The next time you have a trip east on I-70, you could take a very short side trip up I-435 to the Cabella's adjacent to the NASCAR track. That one features a big room of record Mule Deer, among other exhibits. I don't think they have dedicated big rig parking, but the parking lots are huge and there is always lots of open space. (Leave your money in Kansas..... .)

[Jeffro]

The next time you have a trip east on I-70, you could take a very short side trip up I-435 to the Cabella's adjacent to the NASCAR track. That one features a big room of record Mule Deer, among other exhibits. I don't think they have dedicated big rig parking, but the parking lots are huge and there is always lots of open space. (Leave your money in Kansas..... .)

I go through there quite frequently when loaded (I haul oversize), because the load is usually too tall for the Turnpike. We take the US75 exit in Topeka, run up to US24 and when it exits south on K7 we just go straight on State Av to get to I435 and head on to points east or northeast. In fact, I'll be headed through there Monday on the way to Minnesota via Missouri and Iowa. No time to stop when loaded. Empty, by the time I've gotten through the KC traffic to get near there, I'm usually suffering from big city traffic burnout and just wanna get back to the ol' prairie. I was through there Thursday, but after Indy and St. Louis, KC about did me in.

I may stop just because my "foreman" wants a Lee .22-250 collet die set, which is the reason I stopped at Rapid in the first place. All they had was the deluxe three piece set, which was too rich for his blood. So, I may have to stop there if I've got the time.

He asked me to look because out of all our drivers, he figured I was the only one who knew what he was talking about and what it was!

[blackeagle603]

am still suffering from sensory overload,

LOL. No kidding. I feel like I need a cigarette when I leave Basspro... and I've never been a smoker.

[SeekHer]

Ocean fishing is of course a big attraction for travel to San Dog, but for some reason, Cabelas has really never been that big on the ocean fishing side of things

Between that, and the regulatory and liability issues of doing business in California in general; and doing a sporting goods and firearms business in particular...

Well, it's not exactly surprising that there are No Cabelas in California, but there are in Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.

Chris, have you ever seen their Salt Water catalogue--it's huge, same size as their archery catalogue with the short stubby rods and the huge 5,000 yd of 100# line reels and hundreds of different 8” and 10" lures.

As to doing business in Calif., why have other of the big box stores gone in and as blackeagle603 said, the Bass Pro is doing landslide (sorry poor choice of words for S. Calif) business…Ok, it limits them on what they can sell—CA compliant guns but that still leaves a shit load of guns they can sell unmodified.

I can't remember which store or in which state but one of the big boxes wanted to open there but due to really harsh local guns restrictions they decided to do so anyway since their actual gun (not accessories) business only accounted for about 5% of total sales so they opened without a gun dept...From what I've read and heard, that's about what all the all the big box store do per location.

Cabela’s got into business selling 5 flies for a 25¢ from the want ads in the back of Outdoor Life etc. magazines…They don’t really sell guns they sell all the stuff to make the shooter and hunter happy who has the guns since that is where the profit margin is…Guns have a 10% to maybe 15% mark-up, camo t-shirts have a 60%…I’ve known the owner of the Winnipeg Cabela’s store since he was a kid working for his dad’s mail order gun business back in the 1970s. and it certainly isn’t a destination store—they bought an existing business for a footstep into Canada.