Cabela's publishes its own EDI maps at X12 004030, runs a mandatory 753/754 routing handshake, and Cabela's Canada has a separate vendor guide with its own service levels and a cross border 857. AIMS360 handles all of it natively.
Cabela's publishes EDI maps at X12 004030, older than almost anything else in apparel retail, and requires a routing handshake most department store vendors have never sent. Cabela's Canada goes further again, with its own vendor guide, its own service levels, a cross border document and two different case packing rules depending on where the freight lands. AIMS360 handles all of it.
Yes, both, natively over EDI as part of the ERP rather than a separate subscription. The US program and Cabela's Canada are separate vendor relationships with their own vendor numbers, their own published requirements and their own service levels, and AIMS360 runs them against one style, color and size inventory record. The GS1-128 carton label and the 856 advance ship notice are generated from the same scan that packed the carton.
Cabela's is a sibling banner to Bass Pro Shops, which acquired it in 2017, but it is not the same EDI setup and it should not be treated as one. Bass Pro publishes at 004010 VICS and routes freight with carrier transport documents. Cabela's publishes at 004030 and routes freight with a request and response pair the vendor has to initiate. If you sell both banners, you are running two programs.
The published set, at X12 version 004030.
| Document | Direction | What it does on a Cabela's program |
|---|---|---|
| 850 | Cabela's to you | The purchase order. |
| 997 | Both | Functional acknowledgment. On the Canadian program it goes back immediately on receipt of the 850. |
| 855 | You to Cabela's | Purchase order acknowledgment, confirming what you will actually fill. |
| 860 | Cabela's to you | Purchase order change. Quantities and dates move, and the change needs its own acknowledgment. |
| 753 | You to Cabela's | Request for routing instructions. You are telling transportation what freight is ready and when. |
| 754 | Cabela's to you | Routing instructions. The carrier, method and pickup you are then required to book. |
| 856 | You to Cabela's | Advance ship notice, carrying the carton hierarchy and reconciling to the routing documents. |
| 810 | You to Cabela's | Invoice. |
| 846 | You to Cabela's | Inventory inquiry and advice. |
| 857 | You to Cabela's | Shipment and billing notice. Canada only, for cross border. See below. |
On collect freight you cannot pack a shipment and call a carrier. You have to ask permission first, wait for an answer, and then ship only the way you were told.
Cabela's sends the 850. You return the 997, then the 855 confirming what you will fill.
With goods ready you send the 753, carrying shipper and buyer identification, order references, planned ship dates and carton, weight and cube totals. You are saying: this much freight, this date, who collects it?
Transportation replies with the carrier, transportation method, destination, requested ship or delivery dates and a routing contact. Until that arrives the shipment cannot move.
You book that carrier only. The 856 then has to reconcile back to both the 753 and the 754, and mismatches are a standard chargeback trigger.
Own vendor numbers, own EDI outline, own service levels, own customs path. AIMS360 supports it.
Cabela's Retail Canada publishes its own EDI outline separate from the US program. It adds the 857 shipment and billing notice for cross border freight, sets explicit service levels with stated chargebacks for missing them, and applies different case packing rules depending on whether the shipment is going to a distribution center or direct to a store.
Cabela's entered Canada in 2007 by acquiring S.I.R. Warehouse Sports Store of Winnipeg, and ran Canadian operations as a distinct entity with a Winnipeg corporate office. If you are being onboarded to the Canadian program, treat it as a second implementation rather than a regional flag on the first one.
| Document | When it is due |
|---|---|
| 997 functional acknowledgment | Immediately on receipt of the 850 |
| 855 acknowledgment of an 850 | Within 5 business days of receipt |
| 855 acknowledgment of an 860 change | Within 2 business days of receipt |
| 856 advance ship notice | At time of shipment, meaning when goods leave your facility |
| 810 invoice | At time of shipment |
| 857 shipment and billing notice | At time of shipment, on cross border freight |
The 857 is a shipment and billing notice, required when a US supplier or an international supplier ships into Cabela's Retail Canada. Most apparel vendors have never sent one, because it does not appear in domestic department store programs at all.
It carries the transportation method and tracking, port of loading and discharge for ocean freight, vendor details matching the purchase order, contents matching both the ASN and the invoice, and any allowances, discounts or charges. The requirement that bites is a data integrity one: the Shipper's Identifying Number on the 857 has to be identical to the Shipper's Identifying Number on the 856. Two documents, generated at different moments, that must agree exactly.
And the 857 does not replace the paperwork. Customs documentation, the commercial invoice, packing slip and declaration of origin, still has to be emailed to the Canadian imports address separately. EDI runs alongside the customs packet, not instead of it.
| Distribution center | Direct to store | |
|---|---|---|
| Mixed SKU cases | Not allowed | Allowed |
| Inner cases | Single SKU, each with a unique SSCC-18 on a GS1-128 label | Each unit needs a scannable UPC, SKU and vendor model number |
| GS1-128 placement | On the case | On the carton only, not on individual articles |
| Mixed case marking | N/A | Marked Mixed in 2 inch lettering on one long and one short side |
One purchase order per 856. The Ship Notice identifier is capped at ten characters. Item numbers and line sequence numbers have to be identical to those on the purchase order. The ASN must reflect exact contents and carry valid tracking. Master case markings go beyond what many US programs ask for: vendor number, PO number, vendor SKU, the Cabela's Retail Canada SKU and item UPC barcode, case content quantity, net and gross weight, case number in the form one of twelve, the ship to address, and country or state of origin.
Pallets are 48 by 40 inches minimum, must not exceed 48 by 48 by 84 inches, and are shrink wrapped. Ocean freight must not ship on pallets at all.
Onboarding runs through a named third party tester, with a certification and testing agreement, a Cabela's Canada assigned vendor number, stated invoice terms, and an adequate supply of four by six labels carrying your own GS1 company prefix.
Worth being precise, because plenty of vendor content gets this wrong in both directions. The published Cabela's Canada EDI outline does not set a language requirement, and it does not handle GST or HST either, since tax is dealt with through the customs documentation and your vendor terms rather than in the EDI spec.
But bilingual labeling is still your obligation. Consumer textile articles sold in Canada must carry fibre content and dealer identity information in both English and French under the Textile Labelling Act and its regulations, enforced by the Competition Bureau. That applies to any apparel sold in Canada regardless of which retailer buys it. Treat it as statutory compliance on the garment, separate from anything Cabela's asks for in EDI, and get it right at the factory rather than at the border.
One correction to a widely repeated listing. Cabela's Canadian corporate office was in Winnipeg, and Canadian distribution started there, but distribution moved to a third party logistics facility in Calgary, Alberta in 2015. Directory entries and importer profiles still showing a combined Winnipeg headquarters and distribution center are describing the pre 2015 arrangement.
The published Canadian outline itself is dated 2021, so treat all of the above as the documented shape of the program and confirm current ship to points, current document set and current compliance terms with your buyer. That caution applies with extra force given what has happened to the Canadian banner, covered below.
Cabela's requires a GS1-128 label, still widely called UCC 128, on cases. From the Canadian outline the label is four by six inches, non glossy and waterproof, with the SSCC-18 barcode at 3.06 by 1.30 inches, placed on the short side at the bottom right of each case and no closer than one and a quarter inches from any edge. No laminate or tape over the barcode. The SSCC has to be unique across all of your customers and suppliers, not just unique within the shipment.
That uniqueness rule is the one that quietly breaks vendors running label generation in a spreadsheet. An SSCC reused across two retailers is still a duplicate, and it surfaces as a receiving discrepancy at whichever dock scans it second.
In AIMS360 the GS1-128 carton label and the 856 come from the same scan, so the carton and the file cannot drift apart.
DC and direct to store need different case logic on the same purchase order stream. Case packs and prepacks are configured rather than remembered.
Master case markings demand the retailer SKU and item UPC per case, which only works cleanly when style, color and size is native structure.
Serial numbers are issued from your own GS1 company prefix and kept unique across every account, not per retailer.
A large share of what ships into Cabela's is house brand, which changes what the vendor relationship looks like.
| Brand | What it is |
|---|---|
| Cabela's Instinct | The flagship hunting line, spanning both apparel and footwear including a full boot range |
| Guidewear | Premium fishing and foul weather apparel, men's and women's |
| Roughneck | Work footwear, with waterproof, safety toe and CSA certified variants for Canada |
| Northern Flight | Waterfowl apparel and gear |
| Outfitter and Zonz | Cabela's own camo pattern families. Zonz runs in Woodlands, Western and Backcountry variants |
| 4MOST | A fabric technology family rather than a brand, appearing as 4MOST Windshear, Dry-Plus, Inhibit and Adapt |
Cabela's was founded in 1961 in Chappell, Nebraska by Dick and Mary Cabela, after a batch of fishing flies bought at a Chicago furniture show. A local classified ad went nowhere, an ad in a national outdoor magazine worked, and orders were filled from the kitchen table. Operations moved to Sidney, Nebraska in 1969 and the first retail store opened there in 1991. At its catalog peak the company circulated over 100 million catalogs a year across more than 60 titles. It went public in June 2004 on the NYSE at 20 dollars a share.
Bass Pro Shops acquired it in a deal announced in October 2016 and closed on 25 September 2017 at 61.50 dollars a share, valued at roughly five billion dollars in the closing announcement, with 89 Cabela's stores at the time. The price was cut from the original 65.50 because Cabela's credit card bank complicated approval: Synovus took the deposits, Capital One took the card program. The CLUB card still exists, but as a Capital One issued Mastercard branded for both banners rather than the old Cabela's CLUB Visa.
As of August 2026 the Cabela's store locator shows 36 Cabela's branded stores across 23 states, and none in Canada. The sixteen Canadian stores now appear under the Bass Pro Shops banner. That is down from 89 US stores at the close of the acquisition, with conversions announced locally rather than corporately.
Part of the ERP, not a separate subscription, with no per document or per kilocharacter fees of its own. See native EDI.
A packed shipment can wait on a 754 rather than on somebody's inbox, then take the returned carrier and pickup date before the ASN goes out.
Two vendor numbers, two document sets, two packing rule sets, one style, color and size inventory record underneath.
GS1-128 label printing is built in, so the carton, the 856 and the invoice all derive from the same event.
When Cabela's and another retailer want the same units, allocation rules settle it deliberately.
A third party warehouse maps to a real location, including a Canadian one, so the ASN and tracking come from where the freight left.
What apparel brands ask when a Cabela's purchase order arrives.
Yes. AIMS360 supports both the Cabela's US program and Cabela's Canada, which is a separate vendor relationship with its own vendor numbers, its own published EDI outline and its own service levels. The Canadian program adds the 857 shipment and billing notice for cross border shipments, and applies different case packing rules depending on whether the shipment is going to a distribution center or direct to store.
Cabela's publishes its maps at X12 version 004030, which is unusually old compared with the 004010 or 005010 most apparel retailers use. The published set is the 850 purchase order, 855 acknowledgment, 856 ship notice, 810 invoice, 846 inventory advice, 860 purchase order change, 997 functional acknowledgment, and the 753 and 754 routing pair. GS1-128 carton labels are required. Confirm your own provisioned set with the buyer at onboarding.
On collect freight, the vendor cannot just book a carrier. Once goods are packed the vendor sends a 753 request for routing instructions carrying the shipper and buyer identification, order references, planned ship dates, and carton, weight and cube totals. Cabela's transportation replies with a 754 routing instructions document naming the carrier, transportation method, destination and requested ship or delivery dates. The vendor books only to that carrier, and the 856 advance ship notice then has to reconcile back to both documents. The window can be as little as 24 hours before shipment.
The Cabela's Retail Canada EDI outline documents them explicitly. The 997 functional acknowledgment goes back immediately on receipt of the 850. The 855 acknowledgment is due within five business days of an 850, and within two business days of an 860 purchase order change. The 856 advance ship notice, the 810 invoice and the 857 are all due at the time of shipment, meaning when goods leave the vendor's facility. The outline states that non compliance on the 855, 856 or 810 results in chargebacks.
The 857 is a shipment and billing notice, and it is required when a US supplier or an international supplier ships into Cabela's Retail Canada. It carries the transportation method and tracking, port of loading and discharge for ocean freight, vendor details matching the purchase order, contents matching the ASN and invoice, and any allowances or charges. The Shipper's Identifying Number on the 857 must be identical to the one sent on the 856. Customs paperwork still has to be emailed separately, since EDI does not replace the commercial invoice, packing slip and declaration of origin.
It depends on the destination, which is why one purchase order stream can need two packing logics. Distribution center shipments cannot contain mixed SKU cases, and each inner case must hold a single SKU with its own unique SSCC-18 on a GS1-128 label. Direct to store shipments do allow mixed cases, marked Mixed in two inch lettering on one long and one short side, and require the GS1-128 on the carton rather than on individual articles.
Bilingual labeling is a legal requirement in Canada rather than a Cabela's rule. Consumer textile articles sold in Canada must carry fibre content and dealer identity information in both English and French under the Textile Labelling Act and its regulations, enforced by the Competition Bureau, and that applies to any apparel sold in Canada regardless of retailer. The published Cabela's Canada EDI outline itself does not set a language requirement, so treat bilingual labeling as statutory compliance you owe on the garment, separate from anything in the EDI spec.
This is the detail most sources get wrong. Cabela's Canadian corporate office was in Winnipeg, and the distribution center was originally there too, but Canadian distribution moved to a third party logistics facility in Calgary, Alberta in 2015. Listings that still show a single Winnipeg headquarters and distribution center are describing the pre 2015 arrangement. Confirm your current ship to points with the buyer rather than working from a directory listing.
Not under the Cabela's banner. As of August 2026 the Cabela's store locator returns no Canadian locations, and the sixteen Canadian stores all appear under the Bass Pro Shops banner. Cabela's entered Canada in 2007 by acquiring S.I.R. Warehouse Sports Store of Winnipeg and grew to nine stores by 2015 before continuing to expand. The Canadian retail banner has since converted, though Cabela's Retail Canada may persist as a vendor and legal entity, which is worth confirming with your buyer.
The Cabela's store locator shows 36 Cabela's branded stores across 23 states as of August 2026, down from 89 at the time the Bass Pro acquisition closed in September 2017. Stores are being converted to the Bass Pro Shops banner individually, generally announced locally rather than by the company. Widely cited figures of 49 stores come from an April 2025 data point and are out of date.
Yes. The deal was announced in October 2016 and closed on 25 September 2017 at 61.50 dollars per share, valued at roughly five billion dollars in the closing announcement. Cabela's credit card bank, World's Foremost Bank, was the complication that forced the price cut: Synovus acquired the deposits and Capital One took over the card program. The CLUB card still exists, but it is now a Capital One issued Mastercard branded for both Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's, not the old Cabela's CLUB Visa.
Cabela's Instinct is the flagship hunting line and spans both apparel and footwear. Guidewear is the premium fishing and foul weather apparel line. Roughneck is the work footwear line, including CSA certified variants for Canada. Northern Flight covers waterfowl. Outfitter and Zonz are Cabela's own camo pattern families, and 4MOST is a fabric technology family rather than a brand. In its last year as a public company, Cabela's branded merchandise was about 24 percent of merchandise revenue.
Last reviewed 17 August 2026. Cabela's was founded in 1961 in Chappell, Nebraska by Dick and Mary Cabela, moved to Sidney, Nebraska in 1969, opened its first retail store in 1991 and went public in June 2004. The Bass Pro Shops acquisition closed 25 September 2017 at 61.50 dollars per share. Store counts are from the Cabela's store locator as of August 2026. EDI version and document set information reflects the maps published in public EDI guide libraries, and the Cabela's Canada service levels, case rules, label specifications and cross border requirements are drawn from the Cabela's Retail Canada EDI outline dated March 2021. That document does not state an X12 version for the Canadian program and does not address GST or HST, which are handled through customs documentation and vendor terms. Bilingual labeling of textile articles in Canada is a statutory requirement under the Textile Labelling Act rather than a Cabela's requirement. Retailer programs change, so confirm current specifics with your buyer and the vendor guide issued to your account rather than against any summary, including this one.
Bring your Cabela's program, your Canadian ship to points and your routing headaches to a demo, and we will walk the 753 and 754 handshake, the cross border documents and how one inventory record serves both sides of the border.
