Scheels, a 139-year-old employee-owned sporting goods retailer, operates 32 stores across 17 states using a store-as-destination model that pulls traffic traditional box stores cannot match, according to Retail Dive. The chain installs full-scale ferris wheels, aquariums, and shooting galleries inside footprints that average 220,000 square feet — roughly three times the size of a standard Dick's Sporting Goods location. The result: customers spend an average of 90 minutes per visit compared to the industry norm of 20-30 minutes, per the same report.
The mechanics are straightforward. Each Scheels location houses branded shop-in-shops for Nike, Patagonia, and Yeti alongside experiential anchors unrelated to merchandise. The Overland Park, Kansas store features a 65-foot ferris wheel. The Johnstown, Colorado location includes a 16,000-gallon saltwater aquarium. These installations cost millions but anchor the store as a Saturday activity rather than an errand. Families arrive intending to stay, which extends browsing time and raises basket size without additional ad spend.
The mechanism transfers to any physical product category where the buyer needs to touch, compare, or ask questions before purchase. Scheels solves the showrooming problem — where customers browse in-store but buy online — by making the store visit itself worth the trip. A parent brings three kids to ride the ferris wheel. While there, the parent tries on running shoes, the teenager tests a compound bow, and the youngest examines fishing rods. The store earns four product interactions it would not have captured through ecommerce alone. Retail Dive notes Scheels' model succeeds because it treats the store as the product, not just the distribution point.
A small physical-product brand cannot install a ferris wheel, but the principle scales. If you sell premium cookware, host a $20 weekend knife-skills class in your retail space or at a partner kitchen. Customers pay a token fee, you demonstrate product, and attendees leave with a 15% discount code valid same-day only. If you sell outdoor gear, run a Saturday morning trail-prep workshop where hikers learn to pack a backpack correctly using your inventory. Charge $10, limit it to 12 people, and stock the demonstration table with the exact packs and accessories you want to move. If you sell furniture or home goods, install a play corner for kids with books and toys so parents can browse for 30 minutes instead of 8. Cost: $200 in IKEA furniture and supervision. The return is dwell time, which correlates directly with conversion in any category where the customer benefits from seeing the product in context.
The steal works because it shifts the visit from transactional to experiential without requiring Scheels' capital base. The small brand's advantage is flexibility: you can test a workshop next weekend, measure attendance and conversion, and iterate monthly. Scheels commits years and millions to each ferris wheel. You commit one Saturday and $150 in demo materials. The customer still gets the same core benefit — a reason to show up and stay — and you capture the incremental basket lift that comes from extended engagement. Document the show rate, the average time on-site, and the conversion delta versus walk-in traffic to justify the program internally or to a retail partner.
The broader pattern holds across categories: when your product requires consideration, the store visit becomes your competitive moat if you make the visit worth taking. Scheels proves the model at scale. Your version runs leaner but targets the same behavior.
Host a low-cost in-store event that keeps customers on-site 30+ minutes; dwell time drives basket size without ad spend.
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