Dive Brief:
- Despite one fewer week last year, Dick’s sales grew 0.5% in Q4 and 3.5% for the year, according to a company press release. Adjusted to remove the extra week, Dick’s sales were up about 5% for both the quarter and the year.
- Given the strong results, Dick’s is planning “significant investments” in both digital and stores, CEO Lauren Hobart said on a call with analysts Tuesday. Those investments include technology and marketing, with the aim of expanding Dick’s online presence, as well as additional expansion of its store concepts.
- Dick’s opened seven House of Sport locations and 15 Field House stores last year, with plans to open 16 and 18, respectively, in the year ahead. About 70% of these store openings are relocations or reimaginings of current stores versus net new openings, CFO Navdeep Gupta said on the call.
Dive Insight:
As the retail industry braces for the impact of tariffs, Dick’s is looking ahead to its next growth opportunities.
In 2025, the retailer plans to invest in the repositioning of its store fleet, additional growth in footwear and the acceleration of its e-commerce business. The latter will include investments in speed and convenience, as well as a focus on the retailer’s mobile app, with an aim to “significantly expand” the retailer’s online presence and capture more market share, according to Hobart.
When it comes to footwear, Hobart said Dick’s will invest in more marketing in the space and partner with key brands on big launches. The category has grown to account for 28% of Dick’s business, according to Hobart, up 900 basis points versus a decade ago. Half of that growth occurred in the last three years.
While Dick’s brand partners are more exposed to tariffs than Dick’s is itself, Gupta noted that brands have diversified their manufacturing over the years and Dick’s plans to work with them on prices. Because of the tariff whiplash from the Trump administration, Dick’s financial guidance for 2025 doesn’t account for any possible impact from the duties.
In the year ahead, the sporting goods retailer expects comps to grow between 1% and 3%, and for sales to land between $13.6 billion and $13.9 billion (compared to $13.4 billion in 2024). GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders called this a “reasonable pace of expansion” given the retailer’s growth in prior years and noted that its continued investment in stores like House of Sport and Field House sets the company up well for the future.
Store investments are “helping to future-proof Dick’s at a time when some other retailers are failing to invest in their physical real estate,” Saunders said in emailed comments. “And this is one of the reasons why Dick’s is pulling customers away from more traditional channels like department stores and from mass merchants such as Target. This dynamic will become increasingly important in a market where organic spending growth is slimmer.”
At the same time that Dick’s expands certain concepts, however, it’s been scaling back others. Dick’s Public Lands banner, launched to capitalize on the outdoors space, lists just three stores on its website, down from eight that the retailer ran in November. Its Moosejaw acquisition has also shrunk. Moosejaw’s website now redirects to Public Lands and no stand-alone locations remain under that banner.
