Remember when Dick’s Sporting Goods used to be a major firearms retailer? Then they went woke, first banning the sales of the most popular self-defense long guns and the magazines that feed them. They even destroyed their inventory instead of sending them back to the wholesalers.
No so long after, they began phasing out guns altogether, costing the company a quarter of a billion (with a ‘b’) dollars. At the same time, while they turned their backs on gun owners, they began supporting organizations like Black Lives Matter and other supporters of “defund the police.”
Now, with guns pretty much erased from their stores, they have a new problem: theft. It seems Dick’s “shrinkage” – a polite, politically correct word for retail theft and shoplifting – is costing the company dearly. In fact, it led to a more than 25% collapse in the company’s stock price Tuesday after the company warned of missed sales expectations.
That’s no bueno.
It marked the biggest plunge in share prices ever for the super-woke retailer. And nobody’s snapping up shares at the new, (much) lower price:
Tissue please. ZeroHedge has the 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.
Get woke, go broke as they say. Side with civilian disarmament types over the traditional Americans who support law-and-order and gun rights, then scratch your head (and other places) as you try to explain what happened when your business is hammered by criminals stealing your stuff.
Dick’s shrinkage is never a good thing. Hopefully your retirement funds aren’t invested in the company.
