Scheels Opens 250,00 Square Foot Store in Phoenix

[Alpha8472]

Scheels opened a 250,000 square foot store. It features a saltwater aquarium, wildlife mountain, shoes, team sports gear, fishing, and hunting equipment.

This building was a former Nordstrom. Scheels had to add 100,000 square feet.

Tens of thousands of customers showed up to the grand opening on September 30.

The store is not the largest in the chain. The one in Sparks, Nevada is larger at 295,000 feet.

The new store also features a Fuzziwig’s Candy Shop and a Ginna’s Café along with arcade games and sports simulators.

Nordstrom never drew crowds like this.

What kind of a store is this? It sounds like an entertainment destination.

In California, the only sporting goods store left seems to be tiny little Big 5 Sporting Goods stores. Those are empty of customers most of the time.

https://chainstoreage.com/scheels-opens ... re-phoenix

[ClownLoach]

Scheels opened a 250,000 square foot store. It features a saltwater aquarium, wildlife mountain, shoes, team sports gear, fishing, and hunting equipment.

This building was a former Nordstrom. Scheels had to add 100,000 square feet.

Tens of thousands of customers showed up to the grand opening on September 30.

The store is not the largest in the chain. The one in Sparks, Nevada is larger at 295,000 feet.

The new store also features a Fuzziwig’s Candy Shop and a Ginna’s Café along with arcade games and sports simulators.

Nordstrom never drew crowds like this.

What kind of a store is this? It sounds like an entertainment destination.

In California, the only sporting goods store left seems to be tiny little Big 5 Sporting Goods stores. Those are empty of customers most of the time.

https://chainstoreage.com/scheels-opens ... re-phoenix

Dick's Sporting Goods seems to be thriving in California and opening new stores all the time. They're also taking closed department stores, demolishing and rebuilding them into modern, light and airy spaces. The department store industry should look at what they do with an old Macy's or JCPenney - they gut the entire interior, remove nearly all dividing walls, and cut a massive atrium with skylights into the middle of the store. In most locations they also cut open large windows on the 2nd floor to add even more natural light (while maintaining security of the building). The stores are pleasant and bright, easy to navigate, and comfortable for customer and employee. I'd love to see a Macy's given the same open format as a story mall Dick's Sporting Goods - I'll bet sales would double.

Scheels is more comparable to Bass Pro/Cabelas. Interestingly enough, Bass Pro/Cabelas new stores are downsized from their past. I believe their upcoming Irvine store will be the smallest they've built in over a decade. Scheels started with small stores which still constitute most of their locations, but their new stores are all massive. They're going in opposite directions. Scheels also set up an Instagram account a long time ago for the new Chandler, AZ store to build anticipation within the community and share what they've been doing. Look it up, it's pretty impressive how much work they did to put together this megastore. More importantly, they put as much work into building and training their team as they put into the facility. They send their employees to learn about the categories they oversee. Yes, that does mean sending the hunting folks out to the range and such. But it's a breath of fresh air in a stale retail industry that thinks they can show a new employee a few hours of e-learning courses then consider them "certified experts" and throw them at the sales floor to read the box/price tag to customers with questions.

I'm going to make a road trip to Phoenix in the next month or so, first time back there in a decade, and the #1 reason I decided to go is to see this Scheels.

[Brian Lutz]

I visited the Scheels in Sandy UT a couple of times when we were temporarily living there, mostly to look through their disc golf section. They have huge stores with just about any sport you can think of covered (even the more obscure ones) but I found their prices rather high and don't think I ever bought anything there. That particular store is another huge one and its most notable feature is a 45 foot tall Ferris wheel in the center of the store. Think of it as a Bass Pro Shops/Cabela's type place but with more focus on sports in general compared to Bass Pro's nearly exclusive outdoor focus and you aren't far off.

[Alpha8472]

Dick's has closed some stores in California in the past few years. The one closest to me doesn't seem busy at all. I was not impressed. It looks nice with an open 2 story lobby, but everything seems bland.

Scheels seems like a store you actually want to visit. I like visiting aquariums and museums.

[storewanderer]

Scheels has a store in TX that will be 330k square feet so larger than Sparks.

Scheels is a very financially disciplined, conservative, religious company (sometimes even plays religious music in the store) but when they opened in Sparks it was a very bold move. The economy was in lousy shape and when they opened their store it took a while for the store to find its footing. Scheels is one of those companies that opens stores as they can afford to open stores (doesn't take on debt). They opened Sparks and pretty much everything was MSRP and inventory levels seemed very high. The store always had traffic and always had people buying stuff, and always had a lot of staffing, but it was clear the store wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be and needed a lot of volume to support itself. But for its first 10 years of opening it had STAR bonds so all sales tax collected they got to keep (as opposed to remitting it to the city). The Cabelas that opened 10 miles east of Reno also had STAR bonds (I think that store only survives due to its gun department and its proximity to the CA state line).

Fast forward 10-15 years now and the Sparks Scheels has absolutely figured out what it wants to be and has found its niche. The departments in the store are absolutely amazing to shop- they are staffed with employees who know the products, take the time to work with you to find what you need, and enable you to try products before you purchase them. The store is immaculately maintained. Families who need any kind of sporting goods- they go to Scheels. Be it for kids or a high end product for someone doing something more serious, the store really does have enough products for everyone to stay happy.

The store has in-house equipment repair and in house assembly departments that are flawless in their execution and more than fair priced. Many employees have been at the store since day one and a good number have also transferred in from ND or other locations as the store was getting going and have stayed in the area.

From a community involvement perspective the store has an entire department of 4-5 people dedicated to community relations matters/marketing, all working right out of the local store and only working on things for THAT store. There is not another retailer with a greater level of community involvement.

To that point ClownLoach- if you want to see Scheels, I suggest visiting some existing stores. Those are where you see the Scheels that has found itself, established itself, and has found its footing. A brand new store will be pretty but it won't be as solid as an existing store.

This is an excellent retailer. It understands the concept of knowledgeable employees, proper assortment/selection (even if it means VERY high inventory levels), customer experience, and customer service. A lot of criticism about pricing/too much MSRP but they have signs all over that they will price match online retailers. Frankly I wish they handled a lot more product categories.

[ClownLoach]

Dick's has closed some stores in California in the past few years. The one closest to me doesn't seem busy at all. I was not impressed. It looks nice with an open 2 story lobby, but everything seems bland.

Scheels seems like a store you actually want to visit. I like visiting aquariums and museums.

Most of the Dicks that have "closed" were in conjunction with new store openings and/or relocations which sometimes consolidate two stores into one. I've also noticed one that interestingly reopened after being moved (Laguna Hills, which was consolidated with a relocated Ladera Ranch store into Mission Viejo) and then closed again. They aren't afraid of moving to a different city entirely either.

[storewanderer]

Dick's doesn't do much in Reno. They have their store at the mall, it gets some traffic off of the mall but that is it. They haven't tried to open any other locations in the area. Sports Authority previously had 3 locations in the area (including one in the same mall) and we had a lot less population back then than we do now. But we didn't have Scheel's.

[ClownLoach]

Dick's doesn't do much in Reno. They have their store at the mall, it gets some traffic off of the mall but that is it. They haven't tried to open any other locations in the area. Sports Authority previously had 3 locations in the area (including one in the same mall) and we had a lot less population back then than we do now. But we didn't have Scheel's.

Dicks just announced they're one of the replacements for the Sears at Brea Mall, along with a Lifetime Fitness and Din Tai Fung. So they're definitely still opening new California stores. Doesn't say anything about it being a relocation, and the Yorba Linda store is one of the few acquired Chick's that got a (very expensive) full remodel to the Dicks format. Nearly all the other CA acquisitions got a light remodel but still had low drop ceilings and bland woodwork decor before they eventually were relocated elsewhere. Ironically I was just thinking if Scheels ever wanted to come to California, Brea Mall would have been a perfect place to start.

[Retailuser]

The store is actually in Chandler not to far from where I live.

[storewanderer]

Dick's doesn't do much in Reno. They have their store at the mall, it gets some traffic off of the mall but that is it. They haven't tried to open any other locations in the area. Sports Authority previously had 3 locations in the area (including one in the same mall) and we had a lot less population back then than we do now. But we didn't have Scheel's.

Dicks just announced they're one of the replacements for the Sears at Brea Mall, along with a Lifetime Fitness and Din Tai Fung. So they're definitely still opening new California stores. Doesn't say anything about it being a relocation, and the Yorba Linda store is one of the few acquired Chick's that got a (very expensive) full remodel to the Dicks format. Nearly all the other CA acquisitions got a light remodel but still had low drop ceilings and bland woodwork decor before they eventually were relocated elsewhere. Ironically I was just thinking if Scheels ever wanted to come to California, Brea Mall would have been a perfect place to start.

I'd like to see Scheels open in CA, I think they could throw 2-3 stores in the state. But I don't know if it will happen. The Reno Sparks Scheels will not even deliver products in their store vans (fitness, bikes, other large items they can deliver) to CA. This actually costs them a number of high dollar sales from Tahoe/Truckee customers.