Dick's is "doubling down"

I saw that, myself. They thought they would gain points by raising age limits and ceasing to carry MSR's. They lost money. Now, they are going to eliminate an entire department (or two). Wonder how that will work out for them

Double on down to the poor house. Their stock has taken a hit in the past few quarters since they started this nonsense. What Maroons!

I think the question that needs to be asked is: Who cares? It's obvious they lost a lot of business due to alienating many of their customers with their questionable business decisions regarding firearms last year.

sparkyv said:

Double on down to the poor house. Their stock has taken a hit in the past few quarters since they started this nonsense. What Maroons!

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You guys might think they're morons, but cutting unprofitable sectors is a very standard business move. The market appears to agree, given their stock is up 3.5% on the day.

This is a prime example of how large institutions, such as multi-national corporations, can be harmed by self-interested behavior by the individuals occupying key positions of decisional authority. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, there was much discussion of how individual traders' bonuses encouraged them to assume massive amounts of risk... with all the risk being held by their employer banks, while their individual gains were immediate and non-contingent on how that risk played out over the long run.

Here, the individual CEO made a business decision some time ago to engage in some "woke marketing." No doubt he believed that "the times have changed," and that the market would reward a "courageous, socially-responsible" stand by a merchant, with the larger portion of the market that dislikes AR's outweighing the disgruntled gun-oriented customers. That turned out to be a cluster of bad business decisions.

The choice now is to either rescind that set of business decisions and try to get back to where they were, or to, as the OP put it, "double down." Here's where the individual/executive and corporate/shareholder interests really diverge. It might well be a good business decision to try to undo what was done, but that would require that the individual executive (the CEO here) acknowledge that his prior business judgment was wrong. It's not that hard to do the math on what those prior decisions, if they were wrong, have cost the shareholders in terms of profit, and not that difficult to do a reasonable projection of what the shareholder value/market cap impact has been. Those are not small numbers. If the CEO admits he was wrong and cost the company a few tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, he will likely be fired. So he has no self-interested choice but to press ahead and hope and pray that something comes along to financially rescue his enterprise... or at least cash his paychecks as long as possible, and perhaps establish some "street cred" for an ideological (rather than market-based) job in the future.

Securities class actions are pretty hard to win these days, but it would sure be fun to see a lawsuit play out.

psyopspec said:

You guys might think they're morons, but cutting unprofitable sectors is a very standard business move. The market appears to agree, given their stock is up 3.5% on the day.

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Step one: Take profitable segment and make it unprofitable.
Step two: Cut off the segment that you mortally wounded.
Step three: PROFIT!

Just repeat this a few times and they can have a nice lemonade stand.

Just do it!

- Signed Scheels and Sportsman's Warehouse

Hardly anyone I've known bought their guns at Dick's anyway. "Oh let's buy guns!" "Then let's go to Dicks'!" just don't hear it.
But then again, most the people I've been around are into the far more 'unique' guns like milsurps or Glocks chambered in 10mm and ARs in 300 blackout

The funny thing is, even if you LIKED them, you couldn't buy anything because their Soviet style customer "service" is so execrable.

They make Walmart look like Harrod's.

Deanimator said:

The funny thing is, even if you LIKED them, you couldn't buy anything because their Soviet style customer "service" is so execrable.

They make Walmart look like Harrod's.

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Yeah last I went there their prices were WAY beyond anything I'd reasonably pay. Wal-mart is just full of people who have questionable knowledge of firearms, but nevertheless do assist you in a timely manner.

Dick's own Field & Stream. Are they stopping gun & hunting sales there, too? If they're not, then this is just corp. BS to fool a market segment into thinking they're anti-gun.

Which may have been the plan as to why they opened those stores in the first place.

Sheer brilliance. This is why I advise not to buy from big box stores. They put your local shops out of business and then some corporate decision comes down the pipeline and eliminates that outlet completely.

I can get ANYTHING they sell, including guns, cheaper online.

The whole business model of low-volume, specialty, non-luxury goods being sold in a brick and mortar store front is dead.

Buds will be happy to take my money.

Heir Kommt Die Sonne said:

Yeah last I went there their prices were WAY beyond anything I'd reasonably pay. Wal-mart is just full of people who have questionable knowledge of firearms, but nevertheless do assist you in a timely manner.

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Actually, I've found the service at Walmart to be terrible... so for Dick's to be WORSE is quite the achievement.

Walmart employees generally seem to lack knowledge of their merchandise in general. Dick's employees seem to lack knowledge of basic human interactions.

The night I tried to find out if either of them had .44 Special ammunition in stock, I literally waited 1/2 hour for somebody at Dick's to help me (and that was AFTER an employee at the fishing tackle counter stared at me for fifteen minutes, AND after stopping an employee). I then drove to Walmart and waited fifteen minutes for somebody to help me (who eventually did), then went back to Dick's after which it STILL took 1/2 hour and stopping TWO more employees before I was able to find out that they didn't have what I wanted.

The only thing Dick's lacks is huge portraits of Marx and Lenin on the wall. They should just rename themselves "GUM".

CraigC said:

Sheer brilliance. This is why I advise not to buy from big box stores. They put your local shops out of business and then some corporate decision comes down the pipeline and eliminates that outlet completely.

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Actually, there's a LOCAL "big box" store here, Fin, Feather, Fur Outfitters, that's better than Dick's, Gander Mountain, and all of the small local shops combined. Only Cabela's rivals them.

Deanimator, your posts are hilarious! Dick's is getting roasted... wait, that sounds weird.

The only thing Big Box stores do for me is supply me with reloading components and , candy. Like the salt water taffy, anyone tried that stuff?
I like going there to Bass Bro Shop and getting 1 or 2 reloading boxes, primers and other supplies I may need. The gun display behind the counters at these kind of stores are useless to me because I always buy used guns anyway

Deanimator said:

Actually, there's a LOCAL "big box" store here, Fin, Feather, Fur Outfitters, that's better than Dick's, Gander Mountain, and all of the small local shops combined. Only Cabela's rivals them.

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Cabelas cant even touch Fin Feather Fur! You are talking about the Avon Cabelas compared to Fin in Ashland right?

Heir Kommt Die Sonne said:

Hardly anyone I've known bought their guns at Dick's anyway. "Oh let's buy guns!" "Then let's go to Dicks'!" just don't hear it.
But then again, most the people I've been around are into the far more 'unique' guns like milsurps or Glocks chambered in 10mm and ARs in 300 blackout

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I assume some people did buy guns there.

My first 2 rifles I every bought were from KMart back in the day

Sounds like Dick's is using the Sports Authority path to success

Good!
They join ToysrUs and Kmart before too long.

ohihunter2014 said:

Cabelas cant even touch Fin Feather Fur! You are talking about the Avon Cabelas compared to Fin in Ashland right?

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No, the Fin in Middleburg Heights, conveniently located just down Bagley Rd., from the Berea gun show (this weekend) at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds.

Heir Kommt Die Sonne said:

The only thing Big Box stores do for me is supply me with reloading components and , candy. Like the salt water taffy, anyone tried that stuff?
I like going there to Bass Bro Shop and getting 1 or 2 reloading boxes, primers and other supplies I may need. The gun display behind the counters at these kind of stores are useless to me because I always buy used guns anyway

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Cabelas is good for bulk ammunition, and some reloading tools, although Fin, Feather and Fur here is pretty much on a par with them for the latter.

The report I heard said it would affect only 125 of their stores (initially at least).

I think it will prove to be another bad decision...but it is their prerogative to make bad decisions.