Despite shrinking sales following their last anti-gun corporate decision, Dick’s Sporting Goods has announced it is scaling back its gun business yet again.
During its Tuesday earnings call, CEO Edward Stack said that the sporting goods retailer would no longer carry firearms at 125 locations – roughly 17% of US stores. The company will replace the firearms sections with other categories such as clothing and shoes. Of note, the retailer is beefing up its private-label strategy in a bid to become less reliant on wholesale partners such as Under Armour and Nike.
Of note, net income for the quarter fell to $102.6 million from $116 million during the same period last year, per Marketwatch. Adjusted same store sales fell 3.1% y/y for the 12 month period ending Feb 2.
The shift away from firearms is the second such step over the last 13 months, after the store decided in late February 2018 to stop selling guns to customers younger than 21 in the wake of the Valentine’s day mass-shooting weeks before at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The company also pulled intimidating looking assault rifles from their shelves as well as high-capacity magazines from all store locations, along with subsidiary Field & Stream.
But thoughts and prayers are not enough. We have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us. Gun violence is an epidemic that’s taking the lives of too many people, including the brightest hope for the future of America – our kids. https://t.co/J4OcB6XJnu pic.twitter.com/6VoKwJe8tH
— DICK’S Sporting Goods (@DICKS) February 28, 2018
The company also hired three gun control lobbyists, and announced that it would destroy all of the weapons it had stopped selling.
In response to the 2018 corporate decision, gunmakers Springfield Armory and O.F. Mossberg stopped doing business with Dick’s.
Sales, meanwhile, dipped nearly 4 percent as of November 2018 amid vows by gun rights activists to never patronize the sporting goods chain. During Wednesday’s call, Stack noted that the company had continued to see “double-digit declines” in its gun business, and that they expect the trend to continue.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2W4cmc3 Tyler Durden