UFA Co-operative closing 12-store Wholesale Sports chain in Western Canada
The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press

September 14, 2017
5:13 PM EDT

Last Updated
September 14, 2017
5:16 PM EDT
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CALGARY — The Wholesale Sports Outdoor Outfitters chain of a dozen hunting, fishing and camping supply stores in Western Canada is shutting down after 30 years in business.

The operation owned by Calgary-based UFA Co-operative Ltd. closed stores on Thursday afternoon to tell the 545 staff their jobs were ending.

Most will be laid off but some may be hired at UFA’s farm stores.

There were 12 Wholesale Sports stores with 440,000 square feet of retail space across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The chain had revenue of $103 million in 2016, down nine per cent from $113 million in 2015.

The news comes at a time of consolidation for outdoors destination superstores with American giant Bass Pro Shops snapping up rival Cabela’s in a US$4.5-billion deal announced a year ago. Both U.S. companies operate stores in Canada.

UFA, which bought Wholesale Sports in 2008, sold its U.S. stores in 2013.

That news makes me a little sad. it was the best of the Canadian big outdoor stores, and had a much better selection of goods for shooters than any alternative that I had access to.

Agreed. Sad news indeed.

Not a good thing at all. It was my go to place for a lot of stuff, from fly tying to ammo. The Lethbridge store in particular carried a wide variety of shotshells no one else did. Tungsten Matrix for example at a decent price.
Pretty damn hard to order ammo online!
Interesting the way Cabelas and BPS are mentioned. No doubt they are a factor but there is a lot of product they don't carry that WSS did, stuff that many US companies won't ship directly to the Canadian consumer. This is going to hurt us significantly.
I feel for the employees as well.

As an American living in Calgary when they opened this is not a surprise, unfortunately. I just never saw the market for such a "grand" store there.

Oh there's a market, but the organization was run horribly. I worked part time there for a year or so, and the management chain was a joke.

There is definitely a market for WSS in Calgary and the other sites. I wish there had been one in the Medicine Hat area. Would have done very well here serving SE Alberta and SW Sask. We are served by a small LGS, has a great selection etc. but we could still have used a WSS to pickup the fishing, camping market plus add to the firearm options.

Here in the Maritimes, almost all of what we buy gun related is mail order. I hope that Cabelas doesn't drop its free shipping on $99 orders given the drop in competition.

Russell Sports was the best of the bunch for mail order gun related items, esp for selection.

Russell's was bought out by Wholesale.

Wholesale could still be a success if it focussed on filling the niche that Basspro and Cabelas can't. Be a very good large hunting/reloading store.

Never thought they were well run when the family ran them. Hoped UFA ownership would be better. No such luck. May have been worse!

AB2506:
Good morning to you and the rest of my Canuck friends on the 'Fire.

As was said by another gentleman on another forum I'm on, I'll be sad to see them go and it's a bit of a negative commentary on the state of firearm sales in Canada.

We lost Grouse River in Kelowna this summer and now with Wholesale closing it'll be interesting to see if the smaller shops can fill the gap. I tried to support the smaller ones as much as possible, but have to admit it was mighty handy to have a place where they stocked reloading odds and ends, etc.

Nothing is constant except change is once again proving to be a truism.

All the best to you all in your hunts this fall.

Dwayne

I found wholesale in the small towns were better than the Calgary store. Not surprised but disappointed to see them go. Experiences with Wholesale over the last 7 or so years had me shopping online / out of town over the phone more and more.

Poor service was the main reason they saw very little of my business,for example being told product was not in stock pointing out to the counter staff that there website had X number of the item available by mail order and Calgary is the mail order centre, 10 minutes later "oh here they are". Calling to find out if a .17hmr CZ was in stock being on hold for over 45 minutes, talked to the front desk 3 or 4 times and never spoke with gun counter or anyone who could tell me if the gun was in stock. Five minutes on the phone with Prophet River and the same rifle with scope are ordered and on the way.

Sad to hear about Grouse River though.

A real gap is left in the firearms marketplace it will be interesting to see who fills it. Customer service is key in this market.

All the best.

GRF

Winnipeg store is/was a complete waste of time. Empty shelves, never any new stock, extremely poor staff (firearms dept), pricing not great, etc. Always used to ask myself "why do I keep coming here?" after a visit. Then about 2 years ago I just didn't even bother anymore.

The sporting goods infrastructure in Canada began falling apart in the early 1980's and this is kind of the culmination of the demise of old line western Canadian hunting stores. Things have changed drastically in the last 40 years and this is just another phase. I find it interesting how Bass Pro and Cabellas try to give their stores some of the flavour of a 1960's sporting goods store but it's just make believe. Kind of like the Cracker Barrel franchise which is an ersatz country store and restaurant.
The demise of WS is a bit sad but not that surprising. GD

I used to order a lot from them but over time I shopped elsewhere. These days if I mail order it is usually form X-Reload, Tradeex or Prophet River. When I'm in Calgary we will check out Bass Pro, in Winnipeg we will shop at Cabelas. Losing Russell's as mentioned earlier was bad, it seemed to be a great place to mail order from.

I just never saw many folks shopping there whenever I dropped by.

Wholesale sports is the one who bought a bunch of sportsman warehouse stores....they were run horribly an the buesness dropped off after the take over....when sportsmanship took them back the customers came back....

Too bad - I found WSS had a much better selection of handloading and shooting supplies than either Cabela's or Bass Pro, although the latter two seem to offer more for clothing, albeit much of it of low quality. I found that the worst thing about WSS was the customer service, but then I already knew exactly what I was looking for before I even set foot in the store.

I took advantage of the sale yesterday and completely outfitted the kid, as well as a few things for myself - saved approx. $300 in the process, but feel bad about those that will be loosing their jobs.

not surprised this is happening, blame it on the marketers whole lack the know how to get people in there and see what its all about.

I found them to be more expensive than some smaller guys, not very well run from a customer standpoint. It wont bother me at all them closing their big box stores, good for the little guys and Canadian tire will fill any gaps.

Cabela's in Anchorage has been a ghost town when I've been there. Don't know how a box store can keep doors open sometimes.

Funny how many years ago people had to use catalogs and order stuff from a distant store. All this tech later and we are back to ordering and waiting on the mail again

Was at the Lethbridge store yesterday. Picked up a number of things I had been planning to buy in the next while, figured I had best make the 2hr drive sooner rather than later. The place was packed with folks stocking up. Sale prices were from 5% to 30% depending on the item. Most conversations I overheard had to due with how guys are going to miss the hands on shopping.

There was plenty of stock and as I was leaving with a wallet $200.00 lighter, an 18 wheeler was arriving with more stock. Seems they aren't going to stop deliveries of product already in the system!

I don't do a lot of online shopping as I prefer to physically lay hands on an item before I lay out the bucks. Having said that, I do order some very hard to find fly tying materials from well known, trusted shops as well as my sock type decoys. Virtually everything else outdoor related, I buy in the store.

I plan to go back at least one more time plus visit the Calgary store before they close. I keep hearing about poor customer service at WSS. I can honestly say that the service in Lethbridge has always been very good. Friendly staff who were pretty knowledgable in most cases. If they didn't know the answer, they admitted it and a) found someone who did and/or b) were up front about it.

Lethbridge always has had better service than Calgary

Edmonton was probably the worst. Esp after the move from 98th/Yellowhead location. There was something cool about the old warehouse building. And they had pretty good folks working there. Things changed with the move to Yellowhead/St Albert Trail. I never did get into the Southside location, could never find it for all the traffic and poorly designed road system they built.

It is going to be an interesting market moving forward now. At least Calgary has some good fly shops. Lord I miss Jim Goulds fly shop that used to be in the SW near Currie Barracks. I used to slip over there at coffee and lunch sometimes. Then there was Toys For Boys on McLeod Tr. South down from Chinook Mall. Old School shops those two were.
Getting off topic here, plus dating myself a bit!