Shopping for outdoor lifestyle stuff is normally a quick way to burn a lot of cash.
Whether at Dick’s Sporting Goods or REI, well-made apparel and gear usually come at a premium price — even with the occasional coupon or sale.
My consumer experience with activewear (and inactivewear), shoes, and other accessories led me to believe the relationship between quality and price was somewhat fixed.
That was before I discovered Sierra.
I gave my local store in Madison, Wisconsin, a look for the first time a few years ago.
I’ve done plenty of shopping at Sierra’s more widely known siblings, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, and I never really felt the spark that keeps die-hard Maxxinistas coming back. Yes, the discounts at those stores seem large, but I’m not always able to tell if the price is actually a good value — especially if I don’t recognize the brand.
Scanning the racks at Sierra was a different story, however. These were brands that I knew and trusted, like Smartwool, Carhartt, and more.
Each time I came back, I wondered why the Sierra brand wasn’t more widely known relative to TJX’s other brands and even other outdoor retailers.
It turns out, the reason is pretty simple. The brand was, and still is, fairly small and a more recent addition to the TJX portfolio.
Originally called Sierra Trading Post, the company started as a catalog company in 1986 in Reno, Nevada. It later moved to Wyoming and launched its e-commerce business in 1999.
TJX acquired it for $200 million in 2012. The first TJX-owned stores were located in Denver, followed by its first East Coast location in Burlington, Vermont.
In 2018, with a fleet of a few dozen stores, TJX relocated the company’s headquarters to its main offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, and dropped the “Trading Post” from the name. The brand has since been on a growth spurt, on track to have 137 US locations by the end of this year.
In the longer term, TJX said it expects the brand to have 325 locations, more than triple the number of stores it had a year ago.
That gives Sierra the fastest growth rate of any brand in the TJX portfolio, though in fairness, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have more than 2,500 US locations combined, so their growth is slower.
Sierra’s tiny stature means it barely receives individual mention in TJX earnings calls beyond annual announcements of planned store openings, per equity research platform AlphaSense.
Out of the spotlight, Sierra has nevertheless been busy.
Foot traffic data from Placer.ai found that customer visits doubled between 2019 and 2022, driven in part by a pandemic-era rush to spend more time outside. While some of that increase is a result of simply having more stores, visits per store were also up, Placer.ai said.
In one of Sierra’s rare mentions, TJX CEO Ernie Herrman characterized the store’s assortment as “moderate to very high end ” in 2022. My experience certainly supports his assessment.
Some recent treasure-hunt finds include the pair of Fjällräven pants I got, the pair of Lodge cast iron enamel dutch ovens in my kitchen, and an ever-expanding collection of insulated drinkware from Yeti, Stanley, and Hydro Flask.
High-quality items from known brands have also given me the confidence to try unfamiliar offerings from the store’s assortment, and I am rarely disappointed. Hydrapeak’s mugs may not have the current cultural cachet of Stanley’s cups, but they do a solid job for a fraction of the price.
Sierra’s selection can be somewhat limited compared to a traditional retailer’s, but I almost always find something worthwhile. I now make a point of checking Sierra before or after trips to REI and Dick’s.
Neither of those competitors is sleeping on Sierra, though.
In addition to its Public Lands stores, Dick’s has recently experimented with clearance stores like the Warehouse Sale and Going Going Gone. And the online REI Outlet offers deep discounts on many of the items the co-op carries in its stores.
Still, Sierra has been in the game for a long time online, and its physical presence is expanding at a rate that could see it match REI’s store count in just a few years.
Another difference is that, unlike other national or regional outdoor lifestyle chains, Sierra’s parent company is a powerhouse of off-price retailing.
TJX’s fingerprints are all over Sierra’s stores, and the combination of its tried-and-tested playbook with this retail category makes the small but mighty brand an exciting one to follow.
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