Cabela’s management said that they are not dependent on comp store sales growth to be profitable, but they will nonetheless start to look at improving sales per square foot in the coming years, reducing some of the entertainment features of new stores and dedicating a larger percentage of the real estate to selling space.

Company CEO Dennis Highby told SEW that it may lead to smaller stores in the future, not more merchandise in the same size stores. Right now it looks like CAB will test the idea to assess the impact of the move. The retailer, which is now deriving about 32% of its business through the stores, is also assessing opportunities to drive more traffic to other parts of the store. Highby said the store design will evolve from the current “straight to the mountain” format to one that will drive traffic to more selling areas.

The strategy comes as management rolls out plans for six new stores in 2006 that will add another 880,000 sf in selling space, or a 42% increase to the current real estate. Two of those stores will fall in the I-95 corridor to take advantage of a very heavy concentration of Cabela’s catalog customers in the area. Additionally, the St. Louis store planned for this year will be the company’s first mall-based store. CAB has also planned for five stores in 2007.

The Cabela’s brand makes up about a third of the mix in the stores.

Half of all new credit card customers come from the stores.
Many new store employees come from the catalog subscriber base.