The region's newest tour attraction is a store

Sep. 28—If you're planning to check out the new Scheels store at the Chandler Fashion Center when it opens Sept. 30, there's a few things you should know.

First, bring your best walking shoes.

Second, plan on being there a while. Michelle Johnson, the company's community outreach and donations person in Chandler, said the average customer spends 3.5 hours at a Scheels store.

Finally, Scheels is not just a sporting goods and outdoors company.

You'll also find furniture for your home, pet supplies, baby strollers and cutlery for your kitchen.

With an inventory of 2.4 million goods packed inside 250,000 square feet, it will be hard to find something Scheels doesn't sell.

"We've evolved over the years, and found that if we listen to our customers, they'll tell us what their needs are," Johnson said during a pre-opening tour of the Chandler store.

It is the 34th Scheels to open nationally — and the first in Arizona.

One of the reasons customers spend so much time inside the store is that it's not just a retail store. There are 76 different shops inside the building.

Oh, not to mention the 1930s-style, 45-foot tall Ferris wheel in the center.

There's also a shooting gallery, rollerball, golf simulators, archery practice ranges, Taxidermy Mountain, a game arcade and a restaurant that is close to a candy store.

The first thing you see when you walk inside the main entrance is a large aquarium stocked with 600 different fish swimming inside.

Johnson said they learned lessons from previous openings. This time, they covered the glass as the fish adjusted to their new living space.

She said that resulted in a lot fewer dead fish than they experienced at other store openings.

If you're lucky to be around, twice a week employees put on scuba gear and dive inside the aquarium to clean it, waving at children while they work.

One thing you won't find in the Chandler Scheels is an escalator to get you from the lower to upper level. There are only elevators. It is one of the first Scheels stores to not have an escalator.

"We've decided to take those out and just keep our focus on the elevators," Johnson said, pointing so some problems escalators have had at other stores nationally.

There are a couple of things that make Scheels stand out, Johnson said.

First of all, everything the management team does focuses on giving customers a great experience.

For example, hidden away is a training room where cashiers learn to use the machines. Instead of a customer possibly encountering a new employee being trained at checkout, every employee using those machines will already have been trained.

Or, say you buy a 10-foot basketball hoop you want installed at your home. Employees will drop by to install it themselves because, Johnson said, they had too many unhappy customers when they used a third-party company to install them.

Another thing that differentiates Scheels from most retail operations is that employees working in the individual shops are experts at what they're selling. They don't work in the gun store on Monday and the golf store on Tuesday.

Each employee is trained for the shop they work in so they can handle any question customers may have when they come in.

"We were sent off to what we call Bow Tech University," said Tyler Kunz of Phoenix, who works in the archery shop.

He said he and his coworkers met with the vendors and got to try all the gear and accessories.

"They taught us everything," Kunz said. "We also got connected with other bow techs from other stores so we can gain their knowledge."

Company officials said they continually train their experts so they stay on top of the latest trends in their specific fields.

There are photos of many of the store's experts learning their respective sales craft on the walls around the store.

Most of the ground floor is devoted to clothing. The upstairs is where most of the sporting and outdoor fans will hang out.

"This is the fun part, this is where I love," Johnson said. "We sell fun, that's what we do."

There are camping supplies, water sports equipment, and hunting supplies, including guns.

However, Scheels doesn't carry every type of firearm. It carries what store managers call "modern sporting firearms." There are no short-barreled rifles or fully automatic weapons.

Johnson said if someone buys a tent but is afraid they won't know how to put it together, an employee will take it out of the box and build it together with the customer in the store.

There will be no soft opening of the Chandler location, Johnson said. Instead, there are a couple of private events for vendors and others before the doors open to the public on Sept. 30.

The store now employs about 400 people and that will increase to about 560 once it fully opens.

Scheels is employee-owned and started in 1906 in Fargo, North Dakota. The company plans to open up two more locations next year, in Idaho and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Other Scheels locations have proven to be a tourist draw, bringing in shoppers from a wide area who will spend hours in the store. Worried about leaving the family dog home for that long, then bring Fido along. Johnson says dogs are welcome inside Scheels.

Johnson said another thing Scheels is known for is giving back to the community, something it already has done in Chandler by donating money to three nonprofits.

"That's one of the biggest cultural points for us," he said. "Not only are we here as a store, but we're here as part of a community and we want to be part of that community."