While it’s not an easy time for outdoor brands or retailers, Arkansas-based Gearhead Outfitters continues to expand, including recently opening its first two stores in Colorado.

The chain now operates 22 stores and is celebrating its 26th anniversary. While Gearhead is growing at a steady pace, owner and founder Ted Herget does not have a master expansion plan.

“We don’t have a manifest destiny map that says, ‘This is where we’re going,’” he said. Rather, vendors often mention opportunities to him, as do others.

“We’re just opportunistic. We’re not chasing it,” said Herget. “Generally, deals will come our way, but it’s really cheaper for us to open our own store.”

Return To Colorado

Gearhead Outfitters owner Ted Herget. Photo courtesy of Gearhead.

The company’s 22 stores are located in Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Colorado.

Expansion efforts received a huge boost with the 2019 acquisition of Rock/Creek Outfitters of Chattanooga, including seven Rock/Creek brand stores in Tennessee, as well as six Uncle Dan’s store sites in the Chicago area and one in Glendale, Wisconsin. The seller was Camping World.

“Our average store size is probably 4,000 to 5,000 square feet,” said Herget. “We’ve since rolled out 10,000-square-foot stores, but we’re still a small footprint that tries to tell a big story.”

This past March, Gearhead Outfitters opened its first doors in Colorado with the acquisition of two Summit Canyon Mountaineering locations.

It was in Colorado where Herget discovered his love of the outdoors in his youth while working at a ski shop in Breckenridge. He started envisioning bringing Colorado’s “mountain attitude” to his hometown of Jonesboro.

Later, attending Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, he worked at a nearby outdoor store, which closed.

“I saw the demand, but the store wasn’t run well,” he said.

After graduating with a CPA credential, he was being encouraged by former sales reps of the closed store to reopen a store in Jonesboro. So he turned down a job offer from Deloitte to launch Gearhead Outfitters in 1997 in a 700-square-foot space. He spent his early years scrambling to learn about retail and the outdoor space to establish the store.

“I just ham-and-egged it,” said Herget. “DJed at night. Cleaned pools during the day. Was open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. I just poured all the money back into the store and really never took a check out. Lived off my cash back rewards that I would buy my inventory with and just invested in my people.”

Journey Beyond Traditional Outdoors

From a merchandise standpoint, Herget said the chain over the years has benefited from an evolution of its mix to increasingly focus on footwear and apparel. He highlighted the role Merrell’s Jungle Moc played in the transition.

The initial Gearhead store focused on bikes and some outdoor equipment, including tents, but pivoted as he sought out categories that could drive more regular purchases to pay the bills. He saw opportunity in the Jungle Moc, which was among the first shoes positioned as an after-sport style – meaning something you’d wear post-outdoor activity.

“I think Merrell’s Jungle Moc 100% changed the outdoor space and changed the outdoors,” said Herget. “It was worn by Diane Sawyer and Oprah Winfrey and people were like, ‘This is the ugliest shoe. It is so ugly; it’s got to be comfortable.’”

Herget added that while his stores remain first and foremost committed to a mission of helping customers tackle outdoor pursuits, the Jungle Moc’s appeal helped him realize that the bigger sales opportunity is around what they do afterwards.

He observed, “If you run, let’s say you run two hours a day or even three hours a day, what do you wear for the other 21 hours? That’s where I want to come in.”

Herget also said that hardgoods are generally lower margin and take up a lot of room. He said, “When you’ve got 4,000 square feet of selling space, you’re not putting a lot of bikes or boats in there.”

Footwear now drives the majority of Gearhead Outfitters’ sales, led by popular running styles such as Hoka and On. Apparel is also a strong contributor with Vuori standing out among athleisure styles.

Herget, a lifelong runner and biker, said that although Gearhead now only carries bikes in three of its 22 stores, the stores can still take care of any customer’s outdoor adventure needs with inventories across its store network.

The footwear wall at a Gearhead store. Photo courtesy of Gearhead Outfitters.

Aligning With Quality Vendors

A major priority for Gearhead Outfitters is to “align ourselves with good partners” that embrace the “special” in specialty outdoor, according to Herget.

Other key brands include Arc’teryx, Cotopaxi, Fayettechill, Free Fly Apparel, Howler Brothers, Kuhl, Oboz, Outdoor Research, Patagonia, Prana, Simms, SmartWool, The North Face, Chaco, Birkenstock, and Oofos.

He also noted, for example, that a Patagonia down jacket may seem expensive versus a comparable Old Navy version but packs significantly more warmth, durability, and style while costing a fraction of the price of a trendier Moncler jacket.

His goal is to sell that Patagonia jacket to the women touting the Louis Vuitton handbag or a man wearing Gucci shoes.

“We keep searching for the best bang for the buck for our customers,” said Herget. “We’re not going to value down like big box stores and everybody else. We value up our products. It’s full price, good service – the full experience.”

He believes outdoor brands in general don’t do a “good job articulating that message” around value. He’s also frustrated brands are not only increasingly competing against his stores with direct-to-consumer (DTC) expansion but also by putting their “bread and butter” colors in popular styles on sale.

“Some of these brands start taking off and their distribution just goes buck wild, and they lose all their specialness,” Herget said. “My whole MO is I want to keep specialty outdoor ‘special.’”

A Gearhead Outfitters store. Photo courtesy of Gearhead.

Same-Store Sales Climbing In 2024 

Operationally, Herget said Gearhead Outfitters is “doing great” this year with same-store sales running up. The company is also benefitting from the addition of the two Colorado stores and a 10,000-square-foot location in Rogers, Arkansas.

An existing smaller store at Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers is being converted into a concept shop that will exclusively feature Patagonia apparel alongside popular footwear selections.

Herget said Gearhead Outfitters also managed increases in sales and gross profits in 2023 despite feeling margin pressures from the excess inventory in the marketplace.

“We were overbought, a tiny bit, but it’s kind of like you knew what was coming,” he said. “Everybody just got so punch drunk.”

A major focus this year is the ongoing rebranding of Gearhead Outfitters to GHO. The rebrand involved a “big investment” to acquire the gho.com domain. He said e-commerce still represents less than 2% of sales and online growth isn’t a priority.

“We’re brick-and-mortar people,” he said.

Outdoor equipment at Gearhead Outfitters. Photo courtesy of Gearhead.

Inviting, not Intimidating

At the store level, Gearhead Outfitters aims to create a “relaxed” shopping environment. Herget noted that outdoor stores can still be intimidating to the average shopper and Gearhead Outfitters prides itself on customer service that leaves shoppers informed and inspired.

“It’s all about like customer interaction areas,” said Herget. “I don’t want to say we’re more service than product focused. My guys know a lot about the product. But absolutely, it’s the service that stands out in specialty-type stores. People aren’t accustomed to that type of service walking into a big box store.”

When it comes to employees, Herget said the chain foremost focuses on developing talent, having recruited many of his current employees over the years from Arkansas State University and nearby high schools.

“We hire the attitude, train the skill,” he said.

While Gearhead Outfitters benefits from its strong analytics capabilities, Herget credits much of the company’s’ success to his team, some of whom have been with Gearhead for over 20 years.

“We’ve got a super-engaged group,” he said. “And we share in the wins, and we share in the losses. It’s really cool. It’s open book. Our sales staff can see the numbers of all the stores, and we don’t hide anything from anybody.”

Herget said his team’s readiness to adapt has served the company well in recent years.

“We continue to challenge our model and challenge ourselves,” said Herget. “We’ve created a cool little lifestyle brand and we’re just gonna slow and steady roll down the road. And we’re just gonna keep it fun.”

The Gearhead Outfitters team. Photo courtesy of Gearhead.