Remember when Dick’s Sporting Goods was a significant retailer of firearms? Then they awoke, first prohibiting the sale of the most popular self-defense long guns, as well as the magazines that feed them. They even destroyed their goods rather than returning them to the distributors.
Unbelievable! Dick's Sporting Goods reported a 23% drop in profit despite sales increasing 3.6% in the Q2.
Why?
Retail theft. Criminals are just walking out of stores with merchandise with zero consequences.
Retailers across the board have seen a 26.5% increase in…
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 22, 2023
They began phasing out weapons entirely not long after, costing the corporation a quarter of a billion (with a ‘b’) dollars. Simultaneously, when they turned their backs on gun owners, they began supporting organizations such as Black Lives Matter and others that advocate for “defunding the police.”
With guns largely removed from their stores, they now face a new problem: theft. Dick’s “shrinkage” – a charming, politically acceptable term for retail crime and larceny – appears to be losing the corporation a lot of money. Indeed, it resulted in a more than 25% drop in the company’s stock price on Tuesday after the company warned of failed sales targets.
That’s not good.
It was the greatest drop in the super-woke retailer’s share price ever. Nobody is buying shares at the new (much) lower price:
ZeroHedge reports on this “terrible” news:
Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. shares plunged 24% at the cash session open — the most on record — because of “shrinkage.”
Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. shares crashed Tuesday in premarket trading in New York after the largest sporting goods retailer cut its full-year profit forecast due to rampant thefts at stores nationwide.
Dicks reported $2.82 per share in adjusted profit for the second quarter, which ended in July, on sales of $3.22 billion. Analysts tracked by Bloomberg estimated $3.81 per share on $3.24 billion – a sizable miss.
Dick’s blamed “elevated inventory shrinkage” for it missing its earnings guidance (from the ZeroHedge story):
…our Q2 profitability was short of our expectations due in large part to the impact of elevated inventory shrink, an increasingly serious issue impacting many retailers.
And the story closed with this.
There was also a report from Bloomberg that Dick’s plans to fire 250 corporate employees in a cost-savings move.
No doubt the company’s virtue-signaling corporate leadership who decided they’d rather side with Black Lives Matter and “defund the police” social justice warriors over America’s hard-working gun owners won’t be among those who are canned.
The soaring thefts at Dick’s stores seem less shocking when considering that The DICK’s Sporting Goods Foundation and its partner The Beyond Sport Foundation have “supported the protests to ensure that black lives matter.” Many of these social justice protests have championed the call to defund the police. Now, years into this grand experiment of progressive utopia, the blowback of these failed policies is wreaking havoc, with out-of-control thefts at retailers nationwide.
As the saying goes, “wake up or go broke.” Choose civilian disarmament over traditional Americans who support law and order and gun rights, and then scratch your head (and other places) as you try to explain what occurs when your business is hammered by criminals taking your products.
Dick’s shrinkage is never desirable. Hopefully, you haven’t invested your retirement assets in the company.