The market speaks
And it says “don’t piss off your customers“:
Following the Newtown shooting spree, Dick’s Sporting Goods changed their policy and stopped selling AR-pattern and other semi-automatic, magazine-fed rifles, even the guns they had already sold.
…
At a time where the only thing a company has to do to sell firearms, ammo and accessories is to unlock their doors, Dick’s sales have flat-lined. In fact, their sales dropped 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to 2011 and their shares 10 percent in the last quarter.
Dick’s CEO pointed his finger squarely at, well, Lance Armstrong. “People had a very negative reaction to the Livestrong brand,” he said at an earnings report.
I’m betting the no PC guns played into that too.
May 9th, 2013 at 9:40 am
We call this picking the variable you want to explain the results you didn’t expect based on what will make look the least like an incompetent fool.
I think they teach this at Wharton and Harvard business schools.
May 9th, 2013 at 11:11 am
A Dick’s store opened near my home a few years ago. The prices were ridiculously high, the sales force couldn’t take time to show any firearms to me, the customer, and their fairly plain selections did nothing to excite me.
So I did not get to take advantage of the recent kerfuffle over EBRs to avoid Dick’s, I’d already done that. I suspect a great many others have done so, too.
Here in Texas I recommend Academy Sporting Goods for all your fun outdoors needs, including a good selection of hunting and self defense and sporting firearms, ammo with good availability and staff that is helpful and know their guns.
May 9th, 2013 at 12:24 pm
The day of, or after, they announced their ban on EBRs, I went to the closest Dick’s to see if I could swipe some mags before they pulled them. I was about 20 minutes too late.
I talked to the guy behind the counter about it, and amazingly he claimed that Academy had pulled their EBR stuff, too. And WalMart. And Cabelas.
It seems he didn’t understand that “pulling in-stock items from the shelves and not selling them” is different from “sold out.”
May 9th, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Dick’s moved in around here a few years ago, and selected locations conveniently near those of our local chain. Seems they used to price a little more aggressively back then, hmm… Anyway, it wasn’t long before our place went out of business, and there was this wonderful sale, prices slashed, everythig must go, yadda yadda. I might shop at Dick’s one more time if they have such a sale.
May 9th, 2013 at 3:58 pm
I quit shopping there. Anectdotal, I know, but there it is. I used to buy quite a bit of .45 acp from Dick’s.
May 9th, 2013 at 10:36 pm
I used to shop at the local Dick’s for fishing supplies and after they stopped selling certain firearms I stopped buying any supplies from there. In February, when a local fishing club fires up for the season i found that there was a consensus that most if not all stopped shopping there, and others that found out via our tournament meetings also decided not to give them their business. We have now all decided to purchase our supplies from a local shop, to a local family, that is returned to our local economy. Best decision I have made in a while, and hope they figure this out quick a they are one of a few stores left in the local strip mall, which is not 2-4 years old and empty…
May 9th, 2013 at 10:40 pm
I saw EBR’s at Academy Sports in Goodlettsville, TNyesteday.
May 10th, 2013 at 10:56 am
Lance, did ANYONE buy any clothes because of the dude?
About all he did was give a boon to yellow.
May 10th, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Dick’s intentionally sat on the sidelines while the rest of the industry participated in the greatest sale of firearms in history.
Nice job, Dick.
May 14th, 2013 at 10:18 am
I never “liked” Dicks before the AR Ban, they were always bottom of the list for me, now, they aren’t even on the list.