Field and Stream was a different beast. For that concept to be competitive, they had to carry firearms. Getting out of firearms meant the end of Field and Steam.storewanderer wrote: ↑April 11th, 2021, 12:07 pmI don't have enough experience with Dick's to know how well the category performed/performs.babs wrote: ↑April 11th, 2021, 10:24 am I don't think firearms was ever a big seller at Dicks. If it was, they wouldn't have gotten rid of it so easily. Back when Dick's has gun counters, it was often unstaffed, or had little traffic. Now compare that to Cabela's, the firearms part of the store is always the packed. While Dick's took a PR hit that may have impacted other areas of their business, it wasn't a major part of their business. As someone else mentioned, Dick's focus is on footwear, apparel, team sports, golf and fitness. They're.not REI and they're not Cabela's/Bass Pro. They're a step down from both.
I was in a Dick's Field & Stream in Medford and it still has a large gun/ammo section. Really it seemed to be one of the highlights of the store. And this is where I have a real problem with Dick's. The CEO goes and makes the comments he made about guns in 2019, drops them in a few stores in 2019 when it was popular from a PR standpoint to do so, supposedly dropped guns at another batch of stores in 2020, yet as we sit here today almost 2 years later in 2021, continues to sell them in hundreds of stores. If it was so personal, why are they still selling any guns? If they are such a great retailer of shoes and running shorts that they need more space for those categories, I would think they would have gotten all of the gun departments closed ASAP in 2019 so they could allocate more space to all those shoes and running shorts that are flying off the shelves. I think it was all a PR ploy and there are a number of folks out there who think Dick's stopped selling guns and is some sort of great company for doing so when in reality they are still one of the largest retailers of guns in the US.
I don't care so much that they ended the sale of guns in a few stores. I am happy for the independent businesses that gained share as a result of the move. I just don't like how they went about it.
Dick's focusing on footwear (departments are self serve so little labor), apparel, team sports - all higher margin categories. Golf and fitness - maybe not quite as high margin, depending on the item, and higher labor.
Sounds sort of like what the department stores did over the years which at the time the financial folks said was great as they were focusing on higher margin categories, but ultimately drove them into irrelevance. Picked and chose categories, got rid of more and more products, focusing on "higher margin" soft type items.
Maybe this will work for Dick's. Vendors seem to be working with Dick's to favor it over other retailers, like Nike, who ended so many wholesale accounts and as a result will push more and more customers to Dick's.
The reason big brands live Dick's is because Dick's let's them fund and build brand shops where they can control their positioning. That's why Nike loves working with them. Same with adidas and Under Armour. Nothing a bug brand hates more than an in-store presentation that is nothing more than putting your stuff on a generic rack. You lose all the work you put into making your brand stand out. Dick's was one of the pioneers in this and is part of the reason they grew so big and survived