quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
I guess after trying "Retard", Dick's decided to go "Full Retard".

Unrecognizable from their first store.

I heard an add on the radio yesterday (SiriusXM) to come in and check out the "new Dick's stores." Essentially they are advertising that they have more baseball and basketball gear than ever before.

My first thought was that they are hurting and trying to make up for losses in sales. I've never heard them advertising before.

They made their bed.

Dick's Sporting Goods...wonderful place (well okay, a over-priced sorta reasonable place prior to 1986).

today...best place to wonder through, then ask every clerk you see where the gun section is and if they have any ammo in stock (particularly if they appear to be management).

other than that...screw-em.

"The company said the 10 stores they had removed guns from in the fall had performed up to their expectations and that they now plan to remove guns from 125 of their 858 stores nationwide over the next six months. They said they likely would continue removing guns from the rest of their stores over a period of several years."

So, rather than stop right now, they're going to slowly phase out selling the evil guns. OK.

So they are trying to be another REI, but costing more?

Freaking IDIOTS.

They were good when I needed a football or hockey jersey for my wife's Christmas or birthday present. No longer an issue I've never been back.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.62ee2a6b1411

As Dick’s Sporting Goods pulls guns from shelves, retail industry asks whether firearms are still sporting goods

By Jacob Bogage March 16 at 7:30 AM

Dick’s Sporting Goods announced this week it will pull guns and ammunition off the shelves of 125 of its 720 stores.

The move comes as Dick’s, the nation’s largest sporting goods retailer, is getting squeezed by specialty competitors and big-box stores looking to claim a piece of the ever-growing “athleisure” market. It also came before the latest episode of horrific gun violence that left 50 dead at two mosques in New Zealand.

The decision is part of a trend that is redefining what belongs in a sporting goods store, experts say.

Where once outdoorsy consumers convened for fishing tackle, camping tents and shotgun slugs, parents and children now gather for sneakers, soccer balls and their favorite team’s T-shirt.

“Dick’s is really the last man standing among the national sporting goods chains and what you’re seeing it do is adjust its merchandise to meet consumer preferences in a shifting retail landscape,” said Brian Nagel, senior equity research analyst at investment bank Oppenheimer.

And in large part, gun buyers aren’t going to sporting goods stores such as Dick’s for their firearms. Only 6 percent of rifle buyers bought their weapons from sporting goods retailers in 2018, according to Southwick Associates’ study of segmentation in the firearms market.

Instead, more than one in three consumers purchased guns from local firearm-specific shops and more than 15 percent bought them online. Gun buyers were also twice as likely to buy from an outdoors specialty store, such as Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s or Field & Stream, than a general sporting goods store.

That’s because the business of selling — and buying — a gun is more akin to that of other complex outdoorsy items, such as a kayak or a bicycle, experts say. Consumers often want to test how a gun fits and feels. They might have questions about its use and care and need to consult store clerks.

“Guns are a real technical product. The array of choices is pretty enormous. Add to that the array of accessories and ammunition that go with it,” said Marc Cohen, director of retail studies at the Columbia University Business School. “Customers gravitate based on their outlook to the most expedient location. They’ve probably gravitated away from Dick’s for a few years.”

And selling guns is an expensive business.A salesperson knowledgeable about guns costs more to employ than one knowledgeable about baseball bats, Cohen said. Training staff to adhere to federal and state laws governing firearm sales takes a lot of resources. Guns are also pretty big. They take up a whole lot of shelf space that could be used for other products that are easier to sell.

Ed Stack, Dick’s chairman and chief executive, had the company halt assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazine sales after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February 2018. The assailant purchased a gun legally at a Dick’s location before the attack, but didn’t use that particular firearm in the assault.

But this week’s decision is not political, Stack told investors in an earnings call on Tuesday.

“This is around having productive space,” he said. “There is some places that the hunt business is very good, other places that it’s not very good. And we’re just allocating floor space to make our [products] more productive.”

The sporting goods sector has found that production sits in the fashion and athleisure space, rather than outdoorsy activities, and especially hunting, said Neil Saudners, managing director of Global Retail Data. A customer can wear a Nike sweatshirt with their favorite team’s logo pretty much anywhere. They can only use a gun to do one thing.

“The traditional definition of sporting goods are products that you’ve used for sport or other recreational activities and now there’s been a fusion with fashion,” he said. “You have a lot more people who might wear sports tops to wear casually or who will buy sneakers for fashion. I think that has confused the category a bit.”

Dick’s decision to drop guns is a statement that sporting goods are not necessarily about the equipment necessary for sport and more about the items associated with the most popular sports, including prominent teams and athletes.

Dick’s is slowly withdrawing from the outdoor market, Cohen said, and hoping with this strategic move it won’t leave too many customers behind.

Sooooo.
D*cks: Makes political move to stop selling ARs.
Customers: Ok, well stop buying all firearms related products from D*cks.
D*cks: Continues to carry non-AR related inventory not selling, costing them money due to inventory and insurance.
Also D*cks: Well, since no one is buying non-AR firearms from us, might as well get rid of all firearms.
D*cks again: Look how well the stores are doing (now that we don't have inventory and insurance from the products we weren't selling anyway).
Media: Are guns even Sporting Goods anymore? Now that one SJW company is pulling out of a market they destroyed.
Media reiterates: The move for D*cks to stop selling guns is NOT political, we assure you. Trust us.

A Dicks with an attached Field and Stream store opened near me about a year ago. I suspect that it will be purged of all firearms soon or just closed. The yuppie liberals can't shop with all of those horrid guns just a few feet away.

quote:

“This is around having productive space,” he said. “There is some places that the hunt business is very good, other places that it’s not very good. And we’re just allocating floor space to make our [products] more productive.”

Translation: "Academy Sports has it figured out and is really kicking our ass. So rather than compete against them we're going to shrink our product line to profitability."

The two Dick’s here in town had a poor gun selection and the prices were too high. There was a Gander Mountain in town that had a great selection, but the prices where too high.

I never bought a gun at either place, because of prices.

We are no longer a selling economy. We are a buying economy. Consumers are usually more educated than the salesperson in today’s world. I don’t need a Dick’s sales person to explain a gun/soccer ball/hockey skate/running shoe/etc to me. I’ve researched it and know exactly what I want. Perhaps I want to try on an item to ensure it fits, but that’s all I need.

In researching what I want to buy, I also know what the prices are. If a brick and mortar is close enough in price, I’ll buy it there. If they are a lot higher, I’ll order it online for the best price.

Dick’s gun sales weren’t lacking because I didn’t want to buy a gun there, they were lacking because their prices were ridiculous...and then they went full retard on top of it. I haven’t bought anything there since. I’ll use them for sizes or to lay hands on an item, but I will always order that item online and not buy from them.

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:
I heard an add on the radio yesterday (SiriusXM) to come in and check out the "new Dick's stores." Essentially they are advertising that they have more baseball and basketball gear than ever before.

My first thought was that they are hurting and trying to make up for losses in sales. I've never heard them advertising before.

I heard the ad yesterday....on Hannity's radio show of all places. I'll give them credit for moxie, but I don't think the return on ad spend will be what they had hoped.

We got an Academy sporting goods recently less than a mile from our local Dicks. I’m hoping Dicks will be shuttered soon. Fuck that stupid company until the sun burns out.

Restricting Gun Sales Cost Dick's $150 Million Last Year

America’s biggest sports retailer lost customers, but CEO Ed Stack said it was worth it.

Last February, when Dick’s Sporting Goods boss Ed Stack announced he was restricting gun sales at the country’s largest sports retailer, he knew it’d be costly.

At the time, Dick’s was a major seller of firearms. Guns also drove the sale of soft goods—boots, hats, jackets. What’s more, Stack, the retailer's chief executive officer, suspected the position could drive off some of his customers on political principle.

He was right. Dick’s estimates the policy change cost the company about $150 million in lost sales, an amount equivalent to 1.7 percent of annual revenue. Stack says it was worth it.

“The system does not work,” Stack said. “It’s important that when you know there’s something that’s not working, and it’s to the detriment of the public, you have to stand up.”

The 2018 school massacre at Parkland, Florida, touched a nerve for the company. Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, had legally purchased a shotgun from Dick’s a few months before the attack. A day after Cruz was arrested, police in Vermont apprehended a teenager with plans to shoot up his high school. He, too, had legally purchased a shotgun from Dick’s.

The two incidents were a last straw for Stack, a one-time Republican donor who in 35 years had turned his father’s bait-and-tackle shop into the country’s largest sports retailer. Two weeks after those arrests, Stack announced he was pulling assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines out of all Dick’s stores. He vowed he’d never sell another firearm to anyone under 21.

The response was predictable. The National Rifle Association criticized his “strange business model.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation expelled Dick’s from its membership. Gun manufacturers like Mossberg refused to do business with him at all, and some shoppers followed suit.

Some people applauded the CEO’s decision and promised to show their appreciation with their business—a phenomenon called “buycotting”—but those people didn’t stick around. “Love is fleeting. Hate is forever,” Stack said.



Ed Stack, Photographer: Michael Cohen/Getty Images

What happened at Dick’s confirms new study results out of Stanford University. Respondents said they were more likely to buy a product to support a CEO’s political stance than they were to boycott in disagreement, but their actions revealed the opposite. When asked for specific examples, 69 percent could name a product they’d stopped buying, and only 21 percent could recall a product they started buying.

The stock price hasn’t suffered. Dick’s shares, which didn’t move much following the announcement last February, have climbed 14 percent in the 13 months since, outpacing the 4 percent rise in the benchmark Russell 3000 Index. On Friday, the company’s shares rose as much as 0.6 percent in New York.

The 64-year-old Stack is an unlikely champion of gun reform. Earlier this decade, he helped Dick’s double-down on its outdoor roots, buying licensing rights to “Field & Stream” and launching both a private brand and a new series of stores dedicated partially to hunting. He’s a gun owner himself and insists he’s not anti-firearm, just in favor of what he likes to call “common-sense gun reform.”

No longer a go-to store for many gun-owners and hunters, Dick’s is now navigating its new reality. In August, the company announced it would remove hunting supplies and equipment entirely from 10 stores and use the space for team sports like baseball. Sales jumped in the test stores, and the company will implement the change in 125 additional stores, about 17 percent of the total fleet. After a dip in the last 12 months, the company expects same-store sales to be flat or rise a little.

Then there’s Field & Stream. The outdoor label, which includes kayaks, camo jackets and sleeping bags, is the company’s top-selling private brand. Stack acknowledged that the gun decision has hurt Field & Stream sales and that the company faces a potentially larger decision about its 35 Field & Stream stores, located mostly in the south and Northeast.

“Can they shift it to play more towards active outdoors versus bloodsport,” said Sam Poser, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group. “They’re big spaces, and the majority of those leases are long-term. They’ll have some decisions to make, and I think they can figure it out.”

To be fair, guns were a shrinking part of Dick’s business before Stack changed the company policy. And annual firearm sales nationwide have dropped almost 17 percent since 2016, according to research firm Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting. Parts of Dick’s policy have been matched by others, including Walmart and Kroger-owned Fred Meyer, neither of which faced similar outcry or anger.

Stack’s not finished, though. For almost a year, Dick’s has been working with Glover Park Group to lobby for gun reform. Last month, Stack was one of just four CEOs to sign a letter supporting a universal gun control bill that recently passed in the house, and he recently joined the business council of Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit that advocates for gun control. (Everytown was founded by Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...ft-cut-sales-by-150m

that asshole can go choke on a dick in an alley. Hope they go out of business. Fuck them.

I would be useful for a 2A advocate to buy a share of their stock, show up at the annual meeting and ask him some questions he doesn't want to answer.

They obviously did not learn from what happened with The Sports Authority. It seems like almost the exact same slow motion train wreck in progress.

This is like a prostitute who sucks umm dicks for a living, then suddenly decides that sex is immoral and spends the rest of their life looking down on everyone else.

For years, Dick's made money by selling firearms (including AR-15s), accessories and ammunition, and now they want to convince us that firearms are evil and that firearm ownership is immoral.

In both cases, though, the old saying "Once a whore, always a whore" holds true.

quote:

Originally posted by Dtech:
They obviously did not learn from what happened with The Sports Authority. It seems like almost the exact same slow motion train wreck in progress.

TSA went out of business because they weren't cheap enough to complete with Big-5 but, got crushed by DSG because they barely lifted a finger to make their stores & merchandise appealing. There's only so much space in the market place for discounted/price-sensitive stores. DSG went after TSA over a 5-6 year period, the dominance signal was when DSG opened their soccer complex in Denver...which is HQ for TSA.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum: For years, Dick's made money by selling firearms (including AR-15s), accessories and ammunition, and now they want to convince us that firearms are evil and that firearm ownership is immoral.

Nailed it.

The last 20-years, DSG wanted to be the largest sporting goods retailer in the US, firearms are apart of sporting goods. Now after 71-years of business, DSG has an epiphany that firearms are bad.