Dick's CEO outlines omnichannel vision

Dick’s Sporting Goods plans to spend $850 million over the next three years to add as many as 150 stores while growing total sales to as much as $9 billion with e-commerce contributing more than $1 billion.

The national largest sporting goods retailer outlined an ambitious omnichannel strategy to drive continued growth through 2017 during an investor conference it held on April 14. During the meeting, Dicks said its sales of $6.8 billion last year would growth to a range of $8.7 billion to $9 billion by its 2017 fiscal year as it expands its existing network of 603 Dick’s location by 135 to 150 locations over the next three years. During that same time frame, the company expects its e-commerce sales to nearly double to range of $1 billion to $1.2 billion from last year’s total of $628 million.

"We continue to be excited about the profitable long-term growth opportunities of our business," said Dick’s Chairman and CEO Ed Stack. "We are operating in an attractive space in which we continue to gain market share and believe there is significant runway ahead. We remain intensely focused on driving shareholder value over the next three years by investing in the long-term growth of the business, repurchasing shares and paying quarterly dividends."

In addition to what the company characterized as a “measured approach” to growing its Dick’s store locations, the company also plans to pursue expansion of more recently introduced specialty store concepts. For example, the 10 unit Field & Stream outdoor store concept will see the addition of nine location this year and between five and eight new locations the following two years to give it a total of between 30 and 35 stores by 2017.

The company also said it remains committed to its 78 unit Golf Galaxy chain due to the strategic benefits its sees from the chain such as access to premium golf brands, insights into the enthusiast golfer and the scale it provides suppliers. The company did not indicate whether it plans to open any additional locations. Complementing the physical presence is the company’s growing e-commerce business.

By January 2017, Dick’s said it plans to migrate the Dickssportinggoods.com site to its own platform following the successful conversion of Golf Galaxy to a new platform last month. By this fall, the Field & Stream site is planned to go-live with transactional capabilities.