Dick’s Sporting Goods: It’s ‘a perfect storm’ in retail right now

By Christen Smith

Dick’s Sporting Goods grand opening in Houston, Texas in October 2016. (Photo: Dick’s Sporting Goods/Facebook)
Dick’s Sporting Goods’ top executive described the current retail market as “a perfect storm” in a phone call with investors last week.
Chairman and CEO Ed Stack said Saturday the company’s hunting category faces slow growth as politically-driven fear around impending gun regulation drags sales and causes inventory backlog, inciting a “panic” industry-wide.
“It’s a perfect storm right now,” he said. “We’re not particularly happy that we’re in it, but we think we are one of the few that are very well positioned to come up the other side very strong and continue to be the leaders in this industry and we think it’s there and we think it’ll be great on the back side, but it’s going to be painful for a while.”
Dick’s reported second quarter net income of $112.4 million, 23 percent higher than 2016. Net sales increased 9.6 percent to exceed $2.2 billion.
“In this very competitive and dynamic marketplace, we were able to deliver a significant increase in our bottom line from last year,” Stack said. “We continued to capture market share and generated strong results in eCommerce, footwear and golf, although sales were pressured

Source: Guns.com