Dick’s Sporting Goods Shifts From Guns Even as Sales Suffer

In the 10 stores where hunting products were not selling well and were replaced with other merchandise, sales improved during the test, Mr. Stack said on the call on Tuesday. If the expanded trial “goes as well as expected, we’d probably take another batch of stores next year,” he said.Mr. Stack said the shift was meant to make Dick’s stores more “productive.” But Camilla Yanushevsky, an analyst with the research firm CFRA, said that phasing out hunting products was “largely a sign of solidarity with Parkland victims, as well as a form of social activism.”The Parkland shooting inspired other companies to embrace gun safety activism.Delta Air Lines[1], MetLife and others[2] cut ties with the National Rifle Association after the attack. Citigroup[3] and Bank of America[4] placed restrictions on gun industry clients. In November, a group of pension funds and other investors circulated a list of guidelines[5] for gun companies with the goal of improving transparency and safety.“It is up to the private sector to continue this conversation,” Mr. Stack said in the interview, “however slowly it moves.”But gun rights advocates have resisted corporate involvement in their cause.Months ago, American Outdoor Brands shareholders unexpectedly won a vote that asked the company to address the risks associated with its products and gun violence. Last month, the company wrote in response[6] that its “reputation as a strong defender of the Second Amendment is not worth risking for a vague goal of improving the company’s reputation among non-customers or special interest groups with an anti-Second Amendment agenda.”Some of Dick’s 45,000 employees felt the same about Mr. Stack’s decision to restrict gun sales, with 62 resigning over the last year, he said. The National Shooting Sports Foundation voted to expel[7] Dick’s from its membership. Manufacturers like O.F. Mossberg & Sons stopped selling[8] to the chain,

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