Assault rifle ban didn’t hurt sales at Dick’s Sporting Goods
Ed Stack can exhale now.
Just a couple of months ago the Dick’s Sporting Goods chief executive worried that his decision to yank assault rifles and ammunition from store shelves would have customers running for the exits.
The move — coming in the wake of the Parkland school shooting — “won’t be positive from a sales and traffic standpoint,” Stack said in March after gun enthusiasts threatened to boycott the chain’s 720 stores.
Stack, in a bold move, also raised the age to buy firearms to 21 from 18.
But on Wednesday, Dick’s reported the damage wasn’t nearly as severe as feared — as the chain beat Wall Street expectations.
After the surprisingly good results, shares of the Pittsburgh chain’s shares shot up 26 percent, to close at $38.35.
Its shares are up 21 percent since it announced its gun restrictions on Feb. 28.
“They were concerned that losing the gun business would cost them, but they are making it up by selling other stuff,” Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Sam Poser told The Post. “Whatever their concerns were, they didn’t come to fruition.”
Revenue in the three months ended May 5 rose 4.6 percent, to $1.91 billion, while profit increased 3.2 percent, to $60.1 million. At the same time, Dick’s raised its profit estimate for the year.
Customer traffic fell 3.7 percent in the quarter and same-store sales declined 2.5 percent, but management largely blamed cold weather in March and April for the declines.
The average transaction increased 1.2 percent.
While sales in brick-and-mortar stores were down, e-commerce sales, following a wider trend, were up 24 percent in the quarter — up from a 9.9 percent increase a year ago.
The chain’s private label business helped fuel the growth.
“I’m extremely optimistic about the future of Dick’s Sporting Goods,” Stack said on a conference call.
That being said, management expects its hunting business to continue to shrink.
Guns are sold in its Field & Stream stores — but it’s a low-margin business that had been declining well before the firearm policy was announced, it said.
The restrictive stance on gun sales may even have boosted customer traffic to some stores, according to Reveal Mobile, a Raleigh, NC, company that tracks mobile data and found that foot traffic at Dick’s stores surged nearly 4 percent the weekend following its new gun policies, as first reported by The Post.
“It’s very easy for people to go to their social media accounts” to express their support or anger, “but it’s harder to change their shopping patterns,” said Matthew Davis, chief marketing officer of Reveal Mobile.
Davis noted that the backlash against Facebook following it privacy debacle did not affect its advertising revenue or customers use of their accounts.
Meanwhile, Vista Outdoor, which makes many outdoor products — from Savage assault-style rifles to Camp Chef grills, Bollé safety goggles, Bell bike helmets, Blackburn bike accessories and Bushnell golf range finders — said earlier this month that it may sell off its gun business following decisions by several major retailers, including REI Co-op, to no longer sell any Vista outdoor products because of the company’s gun business.
Shares of Vista are down 3 percent since Feb. 28.