doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com strange policy at Cabela's

The message of most ministries today was tolerance and mercy. My musing accommodates with levity keith's scapegoating of those he doesn't agree with. Picking at scabs that divide us is not what we're expected to do.

A very similar conversation about Dicks is taking place right now on another forum I frequent. I might have a little insight on this topic.

My career was mostly spent selling brand name sporting goods (hardgoods and footwear mostly) to retail sporting goods stores, big and small. Also department stores and other generalists. I've done business with everyone from Walmart, Sears, Footlocker and Penny down to tiny golf pro shops, and every type of retailer in between. And to my upcoming point, general sporting goods chains like Dicks. Now, I never did business specifically with Dicks but I did with both Sport Authority and Sport Mart as well as some very large Canadian retailers. SM & SA led the charge into "Big Box" sporting goods retailing. Dicks followed. Please note, SA and SM are long gone from the retail scene. There is a reason for that.

Dicks is in a battle for survival and not winning. Like most generalists they do a lot of different things badly and few things well. They win by location/quantity of stores along with buying power. They hope those two things will make up for all the things they don't do well. In any particular category, they usually get their asses handed to them by smaller, more focused and nimble competitors. They are typically terrible at managing inventory, training staff and personalized service.

While they may have publicly attributed political reasoning to their discontinuation of certain types of firearms, personally I call BS on that. I'd bet they thought they would be gaining some positive PR with some segment they want to attract and so used an action they were likely going to take at some point anyway. It is much more likely their whole shooting and hunting hard goods category (actual guns and ammo, not clothing) is under performing. It takes some serious balls in an organization like that to dump a well performing category. It's just not done. They can't afford to.

If they are completely shutting down the firearms departments in 125 stores it is because those departments are losing significant amounts of money, they can't see a way to turn it around and they think they can restock that area with merchandise that will perform better.

What's happened is that the ascendancy of anti-firearms thought, as propagated by the liberal left, has given them cover, and potentially a benefit, for publicizing a fiscal decision they would have taken at some point anyway. And for that, I blame hunters and shooters who have either behaved as Fudds over the last 30 years and ignored encroaching guns laws because "they won't affect me" or those who actively support Liberal politicians who are clearly anti gun. And I blame hunters and gun owners who have allowed themselves to become embarrassed by their activity....who have accepted the idea that what they do should be hidden.

Not everything is a conspiracy against us. Usually this sort of thing is simple economics. In this specific case with Dick's, I think it's the passive result of the liberal left's anti gun efforts, not an active part of it.

....Our woodland owner organization is comprised of conservatives, liberals and everything in between....

....I don't think the lack of hunting enthusiasm, is directly related to any leftist political ideology, they would just rather do something else.

Location, location, location is the reason for Dicks decisions. They have many stores in locations which long gun demand is very, very low. Their one market plan fits all stores, has never worked well. Like having almost all freshwater fishing supplies when the store is ten mile or less from the Atlantic Ocean and 99% of demand is for saltwater fishing equipment. Or having long guns in a urban or suburban area with almost no interest in them. And people who want guns will hit the internet to find them, not walk into Dicks and look around.

Then on top of that guns and ammo are very low margin lines. If your 10-25% line is not selling, giving you few inventory turnovers a year, you can not afford to let money just sit there not earning you a return. So you reduce your guns and add more clothes which have twice or more the margin. Plus you can merchandise a 100 square foot area in clothes for a few hundred dollars investment where in gun that might be thousands of dollars. And clothes give you four plus turn overs a year, at a higher margin, than guns which will struggle to turn over once or twice a year at a very thin margin. Bottom line is that you can make a lot more money on clothes than guns. If that was not the case the clothes in Cabella's would be gone and the guns everywhere.

Should the car makers be held responsible when some unbalanced nutbar runs down and kills 10 people in Toronto last year? Should the girls who wouldn't have sex with him??

The problem is not the guns. They never kill anyone. It is however, partially a problem of too many lawyers looking for a way to cash in. And has been noted, like journalists and teachers, the majority fall on the left side of the equation. It's where their bread is buttered.....helping to remove the concept of personal responsibility for one's actions as a consideration.