Dick’s Sporting Goods Faces Challenging Future After Sales Drop Due To Gun Sale Policies

The retain giant is becoming smaller by the quarter, and now they’re debating a big change in the items they sell in order to regain the lost revenue.

After the Parkland school shooting that left 17 dead, Dick’s Sporting Goods made the decision to stop selling ‘assault rifles’ at all of it’s locations, as well as enacting an age restriction for the purchase of all firearms.

Now, the company is feeling the ramifications of those decisions, and admits that it’s poor performance is likely due to the above mentioned policies.

The sports equipment retailer posted a same-store sales decline of 3.9 percent in its fiscal third quarter. Net sales fell 4.5 percent to $1.86 billion – a drop that company executives attributed to weak performance in its hunting and electronics category.

Because of the changes in firearm policies, less hunters are shopping at the sporting goods chain.

In 10 of the poorer-performing stores, they replaced hunting gear with other items that perform better, such as baseball equipment.

Shares fell over 7% on Thursday when the new quarter results were made public.