Clay Smiley (holding scissors) was over the moon to cut the ribbon on Saturday afternoon as Prophet River Firearms officially opened its new location to the public. Taylor Weaver Meridian Source
A Border City fixture packing some serious fire power, Prophet River Firearms officially welcomed the public to its new location this past weekend.
The new location, situated at 4206 66 Ave, used to be the home of the Buckle and Tier Ultra Lounge, which turned out to be the perfect location for the store’s owner, Clay Smiley.
“I never planned to leave the downtown,” said Smiley.
“That’s where I planned on being until I sold or retired, but when I dreamed about what a new store would look like, this right here is almost exactly what I had in mind.”
Despite only being in the new location for a few months, Smiley and the rest of the Prophet River team love everything about the new store.
“We like the location, we like the expanded size for the retail even though this is a bonus for us,” he said.
“We didn’t buy it for the store front, we bought it for the new warehouse we have in the back.”
“In the old store we estimated that five per cent of sales were out of the store and the remaining 95 per cent were out the back through the mail and Purolator orders,” said Smiley.
“In here, we haven’t run any numbers yet, but it’s looking like we’re seeing almost 15 per cent of sales going out the front now, so we’ve almost tripled our in-store sales already.
“The mail orders have remained steady, but it’s been a nice surprise seeing how much more business we’ve done locally since we’ve had the new storefront. I hope it stays that way.”
According to Smiley, the old downtown location offered roughly 800 sq. ft. of retail space. The new location offers 4,000 sq. ft. of retail space in the front and an additional 7,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space.
“This new store is so much easier to get to,” he added.
“There’s parking, and it’s just in a more convenient location because we’re right by Walmart and Canadian Tire.”
Smiley first opened Prophet River in May of 2008 and since then, has seen the business grow exponentially.
“I was still a full-time teacher then and working on the odd mail order as a hobby,” he said.
“I did that for two years and starting to cut back on my teaching. It was in October of 2010 that we moved into the downtown store and were there until we moved over here.”
