Gander Mountain

Situation

Gander Mountain, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota operates a chain of nearly 70 “outdoor outfitter” retail stores. Their site at that time, was getting the job done, but it didn’t reflect the image of a soon-to-go-public $500 million company. Since the web site was gradually being transitioned to the marketing department, they needed Distant Horizon to work with minimal management to take the site in the direction that a company of their stature deserved. As with Frank’s Nursery & Crafts a couple years prior, Distant Horizon works best in this type of “just make it right” atmosphere.

Challenge

The primary focus of this project had to be a careful, deliberate visual overhaul that gave Gander options for how quickly to move to new technologies. Existing infrastructure existed for gift card sales, broadcast e-mail and employment applications and while improvements were possible over time, a tight development schedule required that we make use of what was there. Furthermore, we knew that an updated corporate identity was coming down the line, so the site and code had to be flexible. Gander also made it clear that a staff person was being recruited to handle the web site day-to-day, so self-maintainability was important.

Solution

Distant Horizon started with a fresh, rugged design that gave adequate attention to the primary areas of hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation and apparel/footwear. Although Gander was not ready for e-commerce, we encouraged intense focus on the product, especially new products and current sale items. Originally intending for the site to be self-maintainable, we built a database-driven system allowing Gander staff to build online sales flyers with pricing specific even down to the store level. We also made most of the static content on the site self-maintainable through a custom-built content management system. We also added an algorithmic zip code locator, seminar schedule, resources, recipes and articles.

Results

Gandermountain.com has seen visitor sessions double since the launch of the new site. The popularity of the new site and Gander’s ability to maintain the content in-house on a day-to-day basis has resulted in a totally rejuvenated web site strategy. Since the launch, flexibility has been the key. Assisting the client with outsourcing the weekly sales flyers to save staff time, adding investor relations content for the public offering and implementing the new, comprehensive corporate identity have made the Gander Mountain project an exciting entrance for DH into the Minneapolis web development marketplace.

Please visit the www.gandermountain.com site and let us know what you think!