Dick's sports equipment to stop selling weapons in 125 stores | WBNS-10TV Columbus, Ohio
Dick's sporting equipment tells Tuesday that it removes weapons from 125 of its stores, and later cuts back from the category after Parkland, Florida. School photography led to political changes in the company.
The sports producer stopped selling weapons in 10 stores last year to test how they perform. Now the store has decided to remove firearms from 125 extra stores after seeing positive sales. Dick has over 700 stores in the US
The dealer plans to regionalize his business strategy by replacing hunting goods where they underperform best-selling goods, such as clothing, sports shoes or outdoor equipment. Dick's CEO Ed Stack said on Tuesday's earnings call with analysts that he is looking at categories "based on the needs of the current market."
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Stack said the changes will be implemented late this year and that the company is considering a multi-year initiative, depending on how the stores perform.
"If it goes as well as expected, we will probably take another number of stores next year," Stack said on Tuesday's earnings call.
The announcement came after a dive in the fourth quarter sales and a soft profit forecast on Tuesday morning sent Dick's stock tumbling. Stocks in the sports store fell 11.2 percent in Tuesday's trading to close at $ 34.61.
Dick reported a net income of nearly $ 103 million, down from $ 116 million the year before. The report met Wall Street expectations at $ 1.07 per share, according to analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
Coraopolis, Pennsylvania-based company also had a turnover of $ 2.49 billion over the period, which exceeded the Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $ 2.48 billion. But it was down from $ 2.66 billion the year before.
Whatever, sales in the stores opened at least a year, a key goal for retailers, fell slightly over 2 percent.
Stack made a public decision to stop selling weapons to customers under the age of 21 and to stop selling weapons after weapons after Parkland's high school shooting in February last year. The store had legally sold a shotgun to Parkland's shooter Nikolas Cruz in 2017, although the special gun was not used in the shooting.
The new corporate policy constituted a setback from gun guardians among their consumers and the already flagging sector a drag on the dealer. In its annual earnings report, the company noted that its hunting and electronics categories together led to the decline in the same store sales.
"If they were to remove the hunt, they would not lose as much as they would win in other categories," said Joseph Feldman, senior executive of the Telsey Advisory Group.
Dick also said it plans to improve store experiences and focus on sale online.
