Cabela's 2004 Annual Report Download - page 16

common stock, raising over $114 million, of which $38.1 million was used to pay the outstanding balance
on our line of credit and the balance was used for retail expansion. Our common stock is listed on the
New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ""CAB.''
Cabela's», Cabela's Club», World's Foremost OutÑtter», World's Foremost Bank», and Bargain
Cave» are registered trademarks that we own. Other service marks, trademarks and trade names referred
to in this report are the property of their respective owners.
Accomplishments in 2004
Fiscal 2004 was a historic year for Cabela's, as several exciting things happened which set the stage
for our future, including;
‚ We raised over $114 million in our initial public oÅering, which was used for retail expansion and
paying down our line of credit.
‚ We initiated plans to open four new stores in 2005, two in 2006, and two in 2007.
‚ We opened our new Wheeling, West Virginia distribution center, strategically located around our
customer and retail base.
‚ We opened a new 176,000 square foot destination retail store in Wheeling, West Virginia.
‚ Our direct business continued on a steady growth pattern and increased revenues by 5% in Ñscal
2004, on a 53 to 52 week comparison. For the comparative 52 weeks, revenues increased by 6.6%.
We added new catalogs featuring home and cabin furnishings, women's and children's clothing, and
work wear.
‚ Our wholly-owned bank subsidiary, World's Foremost Bank, reached $1 billion in its managed
credit card receivables, and surpassed the one million credit card accounts mark.
Business Strategy
Our business strategy emphasizes the following key components:
Continue to open new destination retail stores. We have grown our destination retail store base from
four stores in 1998 to ten in 2004. We currently plan to open four large-format destination retail stores in
2005, all of which have been announced. Through our extensive customer database and analysis of
historical sales data generated by our direct business, we are able to identify geographic areas with a high
concentration of customers that represent potential new markets for our destination retail stores. We
believe that there are many additional markets throughout the United States that could potentially support
one of our large-format destination retail stores. Additionally, we believe that smaller-format destination
retail stores could provide further opportunities for future expansion. We continue to actively seek
additional locations to open new destination retail stores.
Expand our direct business. We plan to expand our direct business through several initiatives
regarding existing and new customers. We will seek to increase the amount each customer spends on our
merchandise through the continued introduction of new catalog titles and the development and
introduction of new products. We have begun to take advantage of web-based technologies such as
targeted promotional e-mails, on-line shopping engines and Internet aÇliate programs to increase sales. We
also plan to improve our customer relationship management system which we expect will allow us to better
manage our customer relationships and more eÅectively tailor our marketing programs.
Improve our operating eÇciencies and store productivity. As we continue to grow our business
through opening new destination retail stores and building our direct business, we believe that we will
improve our operating eÇciencies by optimizing and investing in our management information systems, or
MIS, distribution and logistics capabilities. In addition, we intend to improve destination retail store
productivity by adjusting our in-store staÇng levels and reÑning our destination retail store layout
strategies.
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