Dick's Sporting Goods Pulls Firearms from Over Half of Stores

The Wall Street Journal has the story here.

The company’s plans to eliminate the hunting department at about 440 more Dick’s Sporting Goods locations follows the earlier removal of the department at 135 stores. The company had 850 stores at the end of the last fiscal year, most of which were Dick’s Sporting Goods locations.

In 2018, following the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, Dick’s said it would sell guns only to people at least 21 years old, and would stop selling assault-style rifles at its 35 Field & Stream stores. The company stopped selling assault-style rifles at its flagship Dick’s stores following the 2012 deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Firearms and ammunition are a shrinking part of the company’s business but Dick’s CEO Edward Stack has taken a public stance on the issue and lobbied for more stringent restrictions on firearms sales.

That shrinking part is largely do to a number of gun owners ending their patronage after Stack joined forces with the gun ban lobby and actively pushed for increased gun control.  Shortly there after the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms industry, expelled the retailer from the association's membership. 

The retailer also reported its latest financial results yesterday and said it expects same-store sales for this fiscal year to be between about flat to up 2%. Last year Dick's saw the company’s same-store sales increase by 3.7%.   Stack has admitted that the company took a sales hit after he became a proponent for gun control.

The Hill: Dick's Sporting Goods Pulling Guns From 125 Stors

You can find the story here.  According to The Hill, company CEO Ed Stack said during an earnings call that Dick’s tested a new "gun-free model" in 10 stores over the last several months and will expand it to markets where the hunting category is not performing well. Stack said those stores that tested the gun-free model saw positive sales in the most recent quarter.

Same-store-sales declined overall in the just completed fiscal year, but The Hill noted the company's stock has increased 10 percent since making the changes related to gun sales last year.

WSJ: Dick's Sporting Goods Paying a Price for Decision to Stop Selling Guns to People Under 21

The Wall Street Journal has the story here:

Sales at existing stores and websites fell 3.9% for the three-month period ended Nov. 3., driven down by weakness in the company’s hunting and electronics departments, executives said on a conference call with analysts on Wednesday. Those categories accounted for over half of the decline. Weak gun sales also hit other areas like outdoor equipment because fewer hunters are coming to stores, said Lee Belitsky, chief financial officer at Dick’s. It was the chain’s fifth consecutive quarter of sales declines.

In February, Dick’s said it would stop selling assault-style guns and would no longer sell guns and ammunition to people under 21 years old in the wake of a shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people. At the time, Walmart Inc. also stopped selling guns and ammunition to those under 21, but the retail giant hasn’t said the decision created a slowdown in sales.

I think the reason Dick's has seen a downturn while Walmart has not has more to do with the fact Dick's decided to hire lobbyists to push for gun control, something Walmart has not done. I know my household stopped shopping at Dick's for my daughter's sports equipment and started buying from a mom and pop owned sporting goods store in our area.