Sierra Trading Post: The Catalog That Became a Website

calendar May 18, 2026 / · 6 min read · sierra trading post outdoor gear mail order catalog TJX off-price retail catalog history  ·
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Sierra Trading Post began in 1986 as a mail-order catalog in Reno, Nevada, selling brand-name outdoor gear at a discount. It moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1992, went online in the late 1990s, and was bought by The TJX Companies, the owner of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, in 2012. Today it trades simply as Sierra at sierra.com. This is the history of how a hand-drawn catalog became part of what TJX calls the leading off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions in the U.S., told from the company's own accounts and from the reporting at the time.

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A Catalog Company in Reno

Sierra Trading Post's own 30th-anniversary timeline describes the start plainly: "Founder Keith Richardson, his wife and five employees begin Sierra Trading Post as a catalog company in Reno, Nevada." Its first catalog was hand-drawn, and it went to 100,000 people.

The idea behind it was off-price retail applied to outdoor gear. A 2007 snapshot of the company's website, preserved by the Internet Archive, carried the line "Save 35-70% on Famous Name Brands," which sums up the pitch: name-brand outdoor clothing and equipment, sold below its usual price. Cheyenne's economic development agency, Cheyenne LEADS, described the company as having become "the nation's first mail-order outlet store" after its 1986 founding in Reno.

In 1990, Sierra opened its first store, also in Reno. By the company's account, shoppers dug through bins of deeply discounted products from outdoor brands rather than browsing racks, which is about as clear a picture of an outlet as there is.

The Move to Cheyenne

In 1992 Sierra Trading Post moved its headquarters to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Its timeline says the Cheyenne location combined a store, offices and a fulfillment center in one building. Cheyenne LEADS, which recruited and tracked the company's growth there, said it had been "a continuous success story" since locating in Cheyenne in 1992.

Wyoming became the company's identity. When TJX bought it twenty years later, TJX's own announcement described Sierra Trading Post as "an off-price Internet retailer based in Cheyenne, Wyoming," and listed among the assets it acquired an office, fulfillment center and photography studios in Cheyenne, customer call centers in Cheyenne and Cody, Wyoming, and four outlet stores in Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming.

From Print to the Web

Sierra Trading Post moved online early. Its own timeline puts the step in 1998, describing Sierra as "one of the first catalog companies to establish an online presence." TJX's 2012 release dates the start of its e-commerce business to 1999, so the two accounts differ by a year; either way, Sierra was selling online well before most catalog brands.

The catalog did not disappear when the website arrived. The company says that in 2007 it launched nine separate catalogs and shipped them to millions of customers worldwide. It added social media in 2009 and a mobile version of its website in 2010. By the time of the sale, the website was the center of the business: TJX described Sierra as an Internet retailer that had grown "to over $200 million in annual revenue," was profitable, and employed "approximately 700 associates with substantial e-commerce experience and expertise."

The TJX Acquisition

On December 21, 2012, TJX announced that it had acquired Sierra Trading Post. The price was "approximately $200 million," paid in cash from TJX's existing balances. Sierra had been privately held until then.

TJX's reasons are in the release. Its chief executive, Carol Meyrowitz, said the deal "adds immediate scale, capabilities and infrastructure in e-commerce," which TJX planned to use as it launched e-commerce sites for its own brands, and that TJX could help grow Sierra "through our buying scale, marketing and our other capabilities." She also pointed to how alike the businesses were: like TJX, Sierra offered "branded apparel, footwear and home furnishings at great values," had a loyal customer base and strong vendor relationships, and operated with a low cost structure.

For Sierra's customers, the visible changes came in steps. According to the company's timeline, Sierra Trading Post could be added to the TJX Rewards card after the purchase, and in 2013 it introduced free ship-to-store service. In 2015 it worked with the ad agency Carmichael Lynch on a new logo, tagline and brand voice, and opened stores in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Burlington, Vermont, adding to stores it had opened in Cody, Wyoming and the Boise, Idaho area in 2000 and in Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado in 2014. In 2016 it moved away from daily coupons toward lower everyday prices.

From Sierra Trading Post to Sierra

In February 2019 the brand dropped two words. SGB Media reported that the retailer "has undergone a rebranding and is now known simply as Sierra," announced on a TJX earnings call, and that TJX planned to open 10 additional Sierra stores that year as part of a wider expansion of its store count. The website became sierra.com.

The rename put Sierra in line with how TJX runs its other banners: an off-price retailer selling brand-name goods below their usual prices, both online and in stores. The underlying pitch is the one the 1986 catalog made, at a much larger scale.

What the Catalog Era Left Behind

Three things from Sierra Trading Post's catalog years still shape what Sierra is.

  • The off-price model. The 2007 site promised 35-70% off famous name brands. Sierra still sells brand-name outdoor and active gear below its usual price, which is the reason people shop it.
  • The Wyoming base. The 1992 move gave the company its Cheyenne headquarters and fulfillment operation, which TJX bought along with the brand.
  • The early move online. Sierra was selling online by the late 1990s and had built a $200 million-a-year Internet business by 2012, which is what TJX said it was buying.

Shopping Sierra Today

Because Sierra's stock comes from the same kind of off-price buying that TJX uses across its stores, what is available changes from week to week, and a particular item in a particular size may or may not be there. For a shopper used to the old catalog, the practical habits are the same as they were then: know roughly what you need, check the site regularly rather than once, and read the current return policy on sierra.com before buying gear you can only judge after using it outdoors. Sierra also runs physical stores, and TJX planned 10 more in 2019 alone, so trying on boots or a jacket in person is an option in more places than it used to be.

References

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