As I recall, twenty years ago Wolverine was just an office area at the side of his house. It had a desk and a table, and merchandise stored around the room. Sales back then were through ads in papers like the gunrunner or access to firearms, and at gun shows. As this interweb thing started to take hold, the business adapted. John opened a smallish retail store on the property, and you saw less and less of him at the gunshows. The smallish store was too small from day one, and there have been a couple expansions since. Now, as could be expected, there is more space devoted to shipping and receiving, gunsmithing, and storage than for the retail portion. About the only gunshows I see Wolverine at now-a-days is the Brandon show and the Calgary show.
The two strongest points that make Wolverine great are his business ethic and his customer service. John is smart enough to know that anything that is good for the general hobby/sport/business is in the long run good for him. That includes helping other businesses in the trade be successful. Some others in the business have never learned that.
The other thing that has helped them is the ability to adapt to the changing rules and regs. After his initial build of the store, and the black cloud of C67 really started to set in, John mentioned that if he had known how encompassing it would be, he may have re-thought building the initial store. Around that time it seemed like a lot of gunstores were dropping like flies. Now, some 13 years later, they have had multiple expansions, and are truly regarded as one of the top firearms dealers in the country.
The store has something for anybody in the gun game. From milsurps to handguns, from hunting goods to black rifle. It is very few times I have gone there and left empty handed.