Cabela’s was founded, by chance, in 1961. Dick Cabela managed his parents’ small furniture store in Chappell, Nebraska. In January of ‘61, Dick and his father went on a product-buying trip. At the Navy Pier Housewares Show in Chicago, a small back-corner booth caught Dick’s attention.
Walker International was marketing inexpensive Japanese fishing equipment. At $2.25 a gross, some hand-tied fishing flies were particularly appealing to Dick. He convinced his dad he could sell the flies through the furniture store. So, they purchased 20 gross (2,880) for $45.
Several months later, not a single fly had sold.
Field & Stream Magazine and a Fishing Trip Redirect Cabela's Thinking
While reviewing Field & Stream magazine, back-of-the-magazine classified ads that Dick never perused before jumped out at him. They heralded his future and became the cornerstone of a refined vision for selling the fishing flies.
Shortly thereafter, while on a fishing trip with his wife Mary, a revelation about why the flies didn't sell became crystal clear. As they encountered dozens of fly fisherman at each point on their trip, Dick realized he didn't have a lucrative customer base for fishing flies in a small-town furniture store.
Dick sprung an idea for a family business on Mary – a venture that used ad space to sell products. Mary didn’t object, trusting Dick’s eternal optimism, drive to succeed and entrepreneurial desires. And, after all, they did have 2,880 flies they needed to sell.
Free Fly Fishing Flies Were the Key to Cabela's Success
Dick purchased the flies from the furniture store and placed his first ad in the Casper Tribune. The ad read, “12 hand-tied fishing flies for $1, postage paid.”
Only Mrs. Ernest Lindahl of Casper purchased a package of flies.
Disappointed but undeterred, Dick surmised that the Casper paper simply didn’t reach a big enough audience or region. He turned Field & Stream. If others could sell live bait, which probably didn’t survive the trip from seller to customer, through the magazine’s classifieds, surely he could sell handsome, hand-tied flies.
"5 Hand-Tied Fishing Flies Free" Catapults the Business
Dick altered the unsuccessful Casper Tribune ad. The new ad read, “5 hand-tied fishing flies… FREE. 25 cents postage and handling.”
Dick knew free was a powerful marketing term that grabbed American consumers' attention. The ad was slated to run in a late-summer '61 issue.
Back at the Navy Pier for a fall show, Dick phoned Mary. Excited, she reported they received 23 orders for flies that day.
Bolstered by new potential, Dick ran ads in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield too. Orders continued to arrive. Several came as 25 pennies taped to a piece of cardboard with a scribbled note requesting the free flies.
Cabelas Run Business on Gut Instinct
Naïve about running a direct-mail business, the Cabelas operated on gut instinct and conservative business values, with great faith and optimism.
They filled orders from the kitchen table during Dick’s off time from the furniture store. Mary typed customer names and addresses on recipe cards and filed them in a shoebox, just in case they need the information later. They labeled envelopes, used pieces of plastic covers from the dry cleaners to make bags and hand-carried shipments to the post office.
Each order cost 14 cents – 1.5 cents for each fly (7.5 cents total), a half-cent for the envelope, and 6 cents for the first-class postage stamp. Because the Cabelas donated their labor, they made 11 cents per order. They were in business.
Cabela's First Catalog
The value of the recipe-card customer database didn’t escape Dick. He returned to Walker International and purchased hooks, lures, reels and bamboo fly rods. He risked all the company profits as well as personal funds to increase inventory.
That fall, Cabela’s first catalog was published. It was a three-page mimeographed list of products stored in Mary’s pantry. A catalog was included with each fly shipment in hope customers might buy something else.
The highest priced catalog item was a deluxe pellet rifle, $9.95; the lowest priced item a 5-cent, nylon-coated wire leader with stainless steel snaps.
Quality Products, Fair Prices and No-Questions-Asked Guarantee
Cabela’s prices were bargains, the result of Dick’s belief that the company must survive on a very small profit margin to offer quality products at a fair price.
Unheard of practice in the early '60s, a no-questions-asked guarantee also covered products despite purchase date or return condition.
From day one, customers came first at Cabela's.
From Kitchen Pantry to 250,000 Square Feet
By the spring of ’62, the business outgrew the pantry. The first Cabela’s warehouse, a shed in the back yard, was built. And Dick’s brother, Jim, joined the business in 1963. After that, there was no looking back.
In 1965, Cabela’s first employee, Sharon Robison was hired. In 1968, the Cabela brothers began to draw salaries from the company. Simultaneously, Cabela’s grew from the shed to dozens of other buildings before locating to Sidney, Nebraska in 1973.
In January 1998, the employees moved out of the original Sidney headquarters into a 120,000-square-foot world headquarters. But, even that facility was quickly outgrown. A new, state-of-the-art addition that more than doubled the size of the world-headquarters building was completed in the summer of 2002.
Cabela's Ranked Tops in Outdoor Equipment Retailing
Jim Cabela and Sharon Robison are still active in the business. They’re aided by the Cabela’s extended family, which encompasses 14,000 employees.
Catalogs remain the foundation of the business, but the slick, full-color, 500-page-plus Spring and Fall Master Catalogs have little resemblance to the first mimeographed sheets that built the business.
More than 130 million Cabela’s catalogs are shipped to consumers in all 50 states and 125 countries annually. In 2001, in a Consumer Shopping Survey administered by Catalog Age magazine, Cabela's was rated the 5th most popular catalog behind the likes of J.C. Penny and Sears.
Cabela's also reports its website was ranked No. 1 in the outdoor retailer industry in 2006, the same year the company was named Company of the Year by Sporting Classics magazine as part of its prestigious Awards of Excellence.
Laurie Lee Dovey - By Laurie Lee Dovey
