Sierra Trading Post (STP) has broken ground on a 350,000-square-foot addition to its fulfillment center in Cheyenne, WY that could signal more aggressive expansion.
When the addition comes online in Fall 2016 it is expected to create 330 new jobs on STP's headquarters campus off Campstool Road, where STP already employs 700 and where employment can swell to 1,200 during peak season.
STP specializes in buying outdoor apparel, footwear and equipment at close-out and selling it at deep discounts online. It has grown from two to six retail locations since being acquired by The TJX Companies in 2012. In February, TJX CEO Carol Meyrowitz announced plans to open two more Sierra Trading Post stores in the Northeast after sales exceeded plan at two locations opened in the Denver area during the fourth quarter of 2014.
TJX initially said it bought Sierra Trading Post primarily to jump start e-commerce initiatives at its much larger T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Homegoods chains, but Meyrowitz has since become enamored with the sporting goods business. T.J. Maxx even begun featuring kayaks in some of its television commercials last fall.
“Longer term, we would be thrilled to grow Sierra Trading Post as the fourth U.S. chain and eventually in Canada,” she said earlier this year.
Reached last week via email, STP Spokesperson Juliette Rule said the expansion is as much about catching up as preparing for the future.
“The expansion has been a long time coming, frankly, but certainly the addition of two more retail stores in Colorado last fall makes the need more pressing,” Rule explained in an email response to questions from The B.O.S.S. Report. “Our focus right now is on meeting the needs of our current structure online, catalog and brick and mortar. Our current Fulfillment Center has little room to spare. The expansion will help ensure we’re operating at peak efficiency, which as you know, helps us keep our costs low and allows us to pass those savings on to customers.”
In the meantime, STP is actively seeking web developers and other technology workers.
“We keep all our technology builds in-house, and as we grow, so does our need for skilled technical workers in the fulfillment center as well as in other facets of our business, particularly the web development side,” she said. “We are hungry for good hires today, much less those we’ll need when the fulfillment center expansion comes online in fall 2016.”
STP’s expansion comes amid a growing sense that national retail chains that can offer free in-store pickup of online orders are gaining the upper hand against pure-play online retailers.
STP has been offering in-store pickup since June 2012 and in July, 2014 began offering a concierge service wherein customers are invited to pick up online purchases within two hours if their merchandise is available in their local store.
