Dick's Sporting Goods Still Looking To Expand To 800 Stores
Dick's Sporting Goods Chair & CEO Edward Stack at the company's annual shareholders meeting said he believes the company will "eventually will reach 800 stores in the United States", according to Kim Leonard of the Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW. Stack said reaching that goal will take "longer than the company anticipated when the prediction was made a few years ago." Stack also discussed that the company "plans to open 20 Dick's stores this year, compared with 43 in 2008." Dick's only "plans to open one new Golf Galaxy, as that brand continues to struggle amid a slump in interest in the sport." Stack: "We've indicated the golf business still will be a bit challenging this year." The company is the "biggest full-line sporting equipment seller nationwide" and "operated 487 stores in all last year." Leonard notes comparable store sales -- "gauging stores open a year or longer -- were down 4.8[%] from 2007-08, and are expected to decline by [6-9%] this year" (Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 6/4). Stack said that consumers "had responded well to an increased emphasis on including lower-cost, value products in the merchandise mix." In Pittsburgh, Teresa Lindeman reports a new 700,000-square-foot-plus Dick's HQs near Pittsburgh Int'l Airport that "about 1,000 employees are expected to move into by January or February" is in the works (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 6/4).
|
