Dick's Sporting Goods will remove firearms, ammunition and hunting products from 125 stores in 2019, according to CEO Ed Stack, and replace them with other products.
Stack told investors March 12 the company removed the hunting items from 10 stores in 2018. Those locations, he said, "had a strong margin rate improvement." Company officials believe removing the hunting category can be replaced with “merchandise categories that can drive growth," Stack said.
Supporters of hunting and firearms reacted strongly in 2018 against Dick's after Stack instituted store policies following the February shooting in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen students and staff were killed. Shortly after, Stack announced Dick's would increase the minimum age to buy any gun to 21 years old and also stop selling AR-style rifles.
Gun supporters immediately called for a boycott of Dick's and its outdoors subsidiary, Field & Stream Shops. Those actions are believed to be part of the reason for declining sales in the second half of 2018. Stack said then that hunting-related items might be removed in 2019.
The boycott and company decisions were reinforced somewhat by statements from American Outdoor Brands. The public company owns Smith & Wesson and Crimson Trace, among others, and has been dogged by gun control activist shareholders demanding changes.
In a federal filing on March 8, American Outdoor Brands said alienating firearms supporters is perhaps the greatest threat to the company. Doing so, it said, would likely “cause the greatest reputational and financial harm."
“The one overriding factor mitigating the effectiveness of gun control groups to damage the reputations of those in the firearms business is the passion and strength of firearms owners in defending their rights at the ballot box, in the course of legislative debates, and in the marketplace,” Smith & Wesson’s parent company wrote.
Shareholder activists demanding changes successfully lobbied in 2018 for American Outdoor Brands to provide more detailed updates about plans and the future. The activists press for things such as "smart gun technology" including facial recognition, which AOB says is cost-prohibitive.
Dick's Sporting Goods saw a 4.5 percent decline in sales in its hunting business in 2018, according to FoxBusiness. That was largely due to hunters boycotting and buying elsewhere.
