Bigskycountry.com, the outdoor industry’s newest online retailer, went live over the weekend from its home in Montana.
The website is the latest venture of Vanns Inc., Montana’s largest independent retailer. Peter Vann founded Vann’s in 1961 and built it into the state’s largest appliance and electronics dealer before selling it to his employees from 1995 to 1998.
The company’s employee owners have been looking for ways to diversify ever since. In November, for instance, Vanns opened “The ON Store” at a mall in Missoula. The pilot store represents Vanns’ response to a shift in consumer spending away from new homes and appliances and toward a new generation of interactive consumer electronics like gaming platforms that allow people to interact with big screen TVs.
BigSkyCountry.com will enable not only further diversification but an opportunity for many of Vanns’ employee owners to combine their skills with their passion for outdoor recreation.
“We are not living in Montana for great opera,” joked Matt Ranta, marketing manager for Vanns. “In Missoula, we are five minutes away from getting lost on a hiking trail or going fishing. We participate in trail running, back packing, hiking, etc. and we were looking for something we are passionate about as individuals.”
While Vanns may be new to outdoor, however, it’s not new to e-commerce. The company, which began selling online in 1998, now derives 60% of its sales from e-commerce and 98% from outside Montana. It operates its own 25,000-square-foot warehouse in Lolo, MT near Missoula and has partnered with Federal Express to service the Midwest and East Coast from a warehouse in Kentucky. The company regularly ships big screen TVs to New York.
Vanns has hired about 10 people to launch BigSkyCountry.com, including buyers and customer service staff.
It went live over the weekend with about 7,000 SKUs, including apparel, footwear and gear from many of the top brands in the outdoor market. Ranta estimates Vanns has invested “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in the venture.
“We know business is growing and we know it is growing online,” he said.
As a Sony dealer, Vanns is accustomed to working with minimum advertised pricing policies, which outdoor brands are increasingly using to minimize dealer conflict. The company has earned Bizrate’s Circle of Excellence designation for five years and is a member of the Better Business Bureau and in 2009 it made Consumer Reports’ list of recommended electronics retailers. But Ranta said Vanns’ success can also be attributed to something he called the “Montana mystique.”
“Why the heck would anyone buy a TV from Vanns?” asked Ranta. “What sense does that make when you have hundreds of competitors out there? There is this Montana mystique – people naturally trust Montanans.”
That phenomenon might even be amplified when it comes to selling outdoor gear given Montana’s status as a major destination for outdoor adventure. Of course, the fact that Montana has no sales tax does not hurt.
