Two Minnesota fishing businesses join forces to expand their specialties

A new partnership between Omnia, a fishing app, and legendary Blaine fishing shop Thorne Bros. aims to solve a problem for both partners.

By handing off fulfillment and inventory management of fishing products to Thorne, fast-growing Omnia will be able to focus on growing its subscription service and improving its app.

And Thorne will be able to triple its e-commerce sales, an area of needed growth for the retailer.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But Omnia sold its inventory of more than 25,000 fishing-related items to Thorne and closed its 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Golden Valley.

Omnia has developed a rich database of information on lakes across the country. Its online site and app can recommend the fishing gear that would be best for the given location.

The company, founded in 2018, had received $2.1 million in venture capital funding by 2021. Since then, it has secured between $8 million and $13 million more in investments.

Selling the inventory will allow the company to concentrate on app development and selling more digital subscriptions to its information.

The Omnia app has changed the purchasing patterns of customers because the user-generated content can help anglers not only pick the right gear for a given lake but also for the fishing conditions in a given time of year.

“Really the only negative feedback we’ve ever gotten has been you need to expand your inventory and you need to have better in-stock rates for the e-commerce business,” Johnson said.

Users can order products directly through the app. That won’t change. It will just be Thorne fulfilling the order, and that will broaden the inventory for buyers.

Without inventory to manage, Omnia will move to smaller office space and concentrate on the tech — and the digital subscription business that carries higher margins.

The company currently has about 15,000 subscribers. Omnia now has two subscription levels: Omnia Core at $39 a year and Omnia Pro at $59 a year.

For Thorne, partnering with Omnia gives it a national audience for e-commerce orders that’s aimed primarily at bass anglers.

“That’s where the big dollars are,” company president Ben Olsen said.

Thorne Bros. has a store in Blaine and sells tackle and gear through national trade shows. It has had an e-commerce presence for years but mainly as a specialty source of custom-built fishing rods, musky gear and as a source for multi-species anglers.

Thorne has been trying to grow e-commerce sales since COVID, and Olsen believes the deal with Omnia will triple digital sales.

“There’s a nice complementary nature to our customer sets,” he said.