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Customers of sporting goods retailer Cabela's enjoy the great outdoors, from hunting to fishing. But the company wanted to put a virtual destination on their maps.

Cabela's initial foray onto the World Wide Web was modest. The outdoors sporting goods retailer based in  Sidney, Neb., offered only a few products online, though it listed more than 100,000 items through its catalog and retail channels. Compared to the e-commerce ambitions of many retailers during the frenetic dot-com years, Cabela's online investment was a ripple in a pond while others heaved boulders into uncharted waters.

"We got in for very little money and integrated to the back end of the enterprise system," says Tim Miller, director of Cabelas.com. But as the year 2000 approached, just when other companies were starting to feel the pain of e-business plans built on hype and little else, Cabela's was getting a big splash from its investment lure. Cabelas.com became a hit with existing customers, who already trusted the 40-year-old company with seven  Midwest retail stores and a large direct-mail catalog business.

"We were all surprised when we realized how much money was going across [the site] quickly, and we needed to prepare for significant growth," Miller says. It was time to redesign the existing site, improve functionality and exploit new technology. …

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