The mesh hat features the name and logo of an open-mouthed fish, a 49-year-old outdoor retailer best known for selling reels and duck decoys. For Mr. Alvarado, it’s just a good-looking hat. “It’s a simple design, like, you can throw it with anything,” he said.
For a variety of reasons, some involving actual fishing, hats are in demand.
Springfield, Mohd. “We’ve had a run of sorts on our trucked Bass Pro caps,” said John Paul Morris, the company’s chief customer officer and son of its founder, Johnny Morris.
The younger Mr Morris would not specify sales figures, but he said the company has seen “many people turn to fishing” – a pastime that can be enjoyed in blissful, socially isolated solitude.
Buyers are snatching the company’s $6 (that’s right, just $6) mesh caps, which are available in everything from solid white to orange camo. The caps are sold at both Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s, a similar outdoor retailer that Bass Pro acquired in 2017.
But this does not always mean that they are easy to buy. There are currently only four traditional logo trucker hats available on the Bass Pro Shops website, and customers often run dry while trying to grab the hat of their choice. On eBay, resellers are flipping the cap for $20 a pop.
In February, Mr. Alvarado was able to purchase four caps for a total of $24 when a friend tipped him for a restock on the Bass Pro website. He said the cap’s affordability was welcomed at a time when factors related to the pandemic tightened his budget.
Mr. Morris said the budget cap covers the company’s goal of providing value to customers. Keeping the price low is also in the brand’s interest because hats are “a great marketing tool,” he said. “We love seeing our customers wearing their Bass Pro hats.”
As Mr. Morris said, caps are great marketing tools. Merchants often advertise the brand’s logo or slogan with custom patches on the caps, just like Bass Pro Shops. These custom patches, no matter embroidered patches or PVC patches, add branding elements and associate customers with a specific brand. Hats promote their brand wherever the wearer goes.
For example, some trucking companies ask their drivers to wear their caps with patches of the professional agency-approved logo, which gives customers brand recognition and an impression. And some sports teams usually give their fans such caps as giveaways. Maybe the next popular caps after Bass Pro Shops are from your brand. Customize now on gs-jj.com.
But why are customers—especially younger customers—so attracted to hats?
Patrick Sims, 34, an account manager for a marketing agency in Austin, said caps date him back to high school.
Growing up, Mr. Sims went to Bass Pro Shops with his father, an avid sailor. When celebs like Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake helped popularize trucker hats, especially Von Dutch (who himself has a moment thanks to a sensational Hulu documentary). Mr. Sims’ two Bass Pro Shops hats satisfy his nostalgia on two fronts: personal and pop-cultural.
Gain Pierre Pereira, 23, a supervisor at a Los Angeles restaurant, similarly sees the bulbous style of the 2000s as “definitely coming back” among his generation, which was the last time trucker hats were on trend.
Mr. Pierre Pereira recently pulled over a Bass Pro Shops trucker for a hat at a thrift store in Los Angeles, because it “comes as manly,” which he found “super cute.” He sees a lot of people around Southern California wearing mesh hats but guesses that, like him, most of the wearers have never picked up a fishing rod.
Those who grew up chasing catfish or deer have noticed that hats are becoming fashionable beyond the great outdoors.
“On TikTok, this is all you see. It’s a different colored hat… you see trucker hats everywhere,” said John Wright, 28, an entrepreneur and hunter in Nashville. Mr. Wright started wearing trucker hats last summer, although he was hard to find.” We have a Big Bass Pro Shops [store] Here,” she said. “You go to the store and all the colors are sold out, man.”
The Bass Pro’s massive retail footprint undoubtedly helps fuel the cap’s current popularity. Including Cabela’s, the company has approximately 170 retail stores spanning from Connecticut to California.
The hats trend has confused some of the brand’s longtime loyalists. Adrian Williams, 26, of Raleigh, NC, has a family member and partner who grew up hunting and shopping at Bass Pro Shops, asking him “why are you using this [the hats] Now as a fashion statement?”
An account executive, Mr. Williams, explained that he liked the size of the hats and the array of colors. He grew up hunting, and now he likes to pair hats with Chelsea boots and skinny jeans.
He and his wife recently visited the massive Bass Pro Shops location in Memphis—located in a giant pyramid and consisting of a bowling alley, restaurant, and archery range—a spot where hats are still kept well. were stocked.
“I used to look at every rack for maybe 10 or 20 minutes, my wife was like, ‘Okay, look, we’ve gotta go.'” Mr. Williams left that day with five new hats. He has no plans to sell them again.